Chuck Vs The Captain
by kroblues
Summary: Sequel to Chuck Vs The Reassignment. Sarah has returned but before they can begin their life together they have the small matter of avoiding death at the hands of the government to contend with.
1. Running

**A/N: Here is the sequel to Chuck Vs The Reassignment. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the first story, this is probably the second of a three part arc. Thanks to Yokaputo for her beta, you were amazingly helpful as usual.**

**--------------**

_Ellie,_

_Me and Sarah need to explain some stuff to you, meet us where Mom and Dad got married as soon as you can, it's _extremely_ important. Don't tell anyone about this, not even Awesome. You can't trust Casey, don't say that you saw us or that you even got this note, and we'll explain everything when you meet us._

_Your loving little brother,_

_Chuck_

The first thing that came into Ellie's mind as she read the letter from Chuck was confusion as she wondered what he could possibly have got himself into, and why there was such a need for secrecy. There was also shock as she saw Sarah's name too, and she mused over whether Sarah had got him into whatever it was he had to explain. Still, Sarah was at least back from her new job, which was good enough news that Ellie finished her shift with a smile on her face.

Ellie was also a little confused by the encoded location to meet up with Chuck and Sarah. He could have put down the actual place, but the fact he didn't must have meant that he was expecting someone else to read it, and he didn't want anyone listening in on the conversation they were about to have. If nothing else Ellie was intrigued, and she was on tenterhooks as she waited to be able to head to the beach.

**--------------**

Chuck and Sarah were waiting in a rental car by the beach. After they went to the hospital Sarah had said she had some work to do so they could go off the grid quickly, and after their forthcoming talk with Ellie they would no longer be Chuck Bartowski and Sarah Walker, but instead Charles Burton and Sarah Franco.

"I guess I know why the beach is so special for you now, Chuck," said Sarah as she gazed out over the breaking waves."

"Yeah," said Chuck wistfully, "this is just a place where I can come and remember when our family was happy. It's always been a special place for me and Ellie for that reason, and if she had her way then she'd be getting married here."

"Yeah, it would be beautiful to get married here; I've imagined getting married on the beach ever since I decided to open up to the idea of marriage."

"When was that?"

"When I left you and there was a constant ache where my heart was. That was when I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."

"Well in that case..."

Sarah let out a gasp as Chuck got out of the car and lowered himself to one knee, a ring in his hand.

"Sarah Walker. I promised myself when you left that if you ever came back I would do this, so here goes. Will you marry me?"

"Chuck, we can't get married until the government stops looking so hard for us, I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you, believe me on that, I probably want it more than you, but I won't risk our lives over a ceremony."

"Well that's fair enough. How about I rephrase my question. Sarah Walker, will you marry me sometime in the future when there is less of a risk of guns being pushed in my face and both of us being killed?

"When you put it like that, how can I refuse? Of course I'll marry you," said Sarah with a beaming smile on her face as she said the words she'd dreamed of saying for months.

The smile on Chuck's face threatened to split his skull in half, and he jumped back into the rental car so quickly Sarah might have thought he'd seen something if she didn't know better. As they kissed they made their way to the back seat of the car and celebrated their engagement in an explosive fashion, and probably lost their deposit on the rental in the process.

**--------------**

Ellie pulled up to the beach in a borrowed car; she had reasoned that if Chuck wanted her to be secretive about something then she probably shouldn't show up in her easily recognisable car. She couldn't see where Chuck and Sarah might be, but a car two spaces over from where she was parked was certainly rocking more than it should be, even with the wind coming off the sea. All was explained when a rather dishevelled looking Sarah Walker stumbled out of the car and straightened her top, and she was followed by Chuck, wearing his goofy grin which suggested at something happening in the back of that car.

"So, nice of you two to join me," said Ellie, "it's really good to see you Sarah, I missed you."

"I missed you too Ellie, and sorry about that, we didn't see you coming," answered Sarah.

"Now we've got the reunion out of the way, I got your note Chuck, what did you want to talk about?" asked Ellie.

"We can't talk here, so how about we go for a walk along the beach?" said Chuck by way of reply to Ellie's question.

That just increased Ellie's intrigue towards whatever Chuck had to say. _Must be important_, she thought, and she got the impression that it had something to do with Sarah, and that there might be other news, especially considering how Sarah was covering her left hand with Chuck's. _They never normally showed that much affection in public, so there must be good news on that front too, _thought Ellie.

Once they got to what seemed to be a secluded enough spot, Chuck and Sarah suddenly stopped, leaving Ellie to turn around and face them, as if waiting for them to elaborate on one of the more confusing messages she had received in recent years.

"I suppose you're wondering what that note was all about," began Chuck.

"Yeah, that's about it," answered Ellie.

"Well, it all began on my birthday a couple of years ago. Bryce sent me an email which contained pretty much every secret the US Government has, and Sa-" said Chuck before he was cut off.

"Wait, hold on a moment. Bryce? As in Bryce Larkin? Guy who wrecked my life Bryce?" interrupted Ellie

"Er, yeah, him. He was Sarah's partner at the CIA, and they thought he went rogue and sent the secrets to me after he destroyed the computer that held them," said Chuck, finishing his earlier statement.

"Hang on, Sarah's partner? Does that mean that you're a spy, Sarah?" asked Ellie. _Well that would certainly explain the "it's complicated" stuff_

"Yes, I am, or was until about 3 hours ago," answered Sarah.

"What do you mean by that?" said Ellie.

"Well, the reason I left was because my superior was concerned I was developing feelings for Chuck, which I was, but they didn't take too kindly to that and reassigned me to a different mission. About a week ago Chuck managed to get my superior to supposedly reassign me back to LA, but when I got the call it was my boss telling me Chuck was dead. I came back to LA to see if it was true, defying orders in the process. If that hadn't got me fired the fact I took a government asset off the grid would do it," explained Sarah.

"Okay, I have so many questions about that. Firstly, what do you mean by 'developing' feelings for Chuck, was your relationship fake the whole time?" asked Ellie.

"Well, sort of. Officially it was fake but we both knew there was something more than a cover relationship there, but we couldn't act on those feelings or I'd be reassigned. Little did I know I'd get reassigned anyway despite fighting my feelings for the better part of a year," said Sarah.

"A year? That's horrible!" exclaimed Ellie.

"Yeah, it was, for both of us. I had to reject Chuck so many times, and it broke my heart to do it each time, but I thought I had to," said Sarah.

"Right, next question, why do you have to take Chuck 'off the grid'? What does that even mean?" asked Ellie.

"Well going off the grid means taking someone where nobody, not even the government, knows where they are. Chuck and I will have new identities and will be set up as far away from here as possible. The reason I'm doing it is because I think my boss is going to take Chuck into a bunker. I promised myself that I would only take him away from his family to save him, and that's what I'm doing. If he went to the bunker he'd never see you, Devon, Morgan or anybody else he loves ever again. That would kill him and I can't let it happen, so we're going to run."

"If you go off the grid, does that mean that not even I can contact you?" asked Ellie

"Sorry Ellie, but it's too dangerous. We'll try to figure something out, but it might be a while before you hear from us, we'll make sure you get to come to the wedding though," explained Sarah.

"Wedding? What wedding?" asked Ellie, beginning to get excited as she saw the telltale glint coming from Sarah's left hand.

"Ours," said Chuck simply, waiting for the Ellie excitement to boil over.

He had barely gotten the words out when he was crushed in one of Ellie's joyous hugs, she was obviously very happy for him, but he was a little upset that he was going to have to miss her wedding.

"I'm so happy for you guys!" exclaimed Ellie.

"I thought you might be," said Chuck midst a laugh.

"Oh be quiet Chuck, it's not every day my brother announces his engagement to my best friend," said Ellie.

"Do you really mean that, Ellie?" asked Sarah.

"Of course I do, you're so good for Chuck I can't help but like you," said Ellie.

"Now, we can't tell you where we're going because frankly, it'd be too dangerous for you to know. That's why Chuck couldn't tell you about his government work either, and there's likely to be a lot of people after us, Chuck is very important to national security."

"Well that's fair enough, is that why you said not to trust John? Is he a spy too?"

"Yeah, and he's kind of insane..." began Chuck.

"Oh be quiet Chuck, he's saved your life far more than I have," said Sarah.

"I know that, but he's also tried to kill you twice, had orders to kill me, and now is probably trying to track us both down so he can kill us both. In conclusion, he's insane."

"Ellie, you have to know that you can't say anything to Casey. If he finds out where we are or even that you know we ran, then it could end up badly for you and us," warned Sarah.

"What about Devon? I have to tell him something."

"It's safer if you don't, and you can't say anything in the house or in the courtyard, Casey has bugged the hell out of anywhere Chuck usually goes."

"When you say bugged..."

"I mean that whatever you say will be recorded if you say anything in the apartment. Please, be careful, I've hurt this family enough already," said Sarah, with a sad look on her face."

"I will be, just promise that I'll hear from you at least once a year."

"We'll try Ellie, we can promise that," answered both Chuck and Sarah.

"Well, good luck, it sounds like you'll need it," said Ellie as she gave them both a bone crushing hug.

"Bye, Ellie, I'll miss you," said Chuck sadly.

"We both will," added Sarah.

"I'll miss you both too," said Ellie as Chuck and Sarah headed back to their car.

**--------------**

"General, we have to inform you that the asset's tracking devices have all gone offline within the last five minutes," said Casey as he stood next to Forrest at the head of the briefing table in Castle.

"So Walker did what we were expecting. Well, Captain, it is your assignment to retrieve the asset, terminate Walker and the asset if he resists in any way. Do this right and you might end up back up in your old rank soon."

"Yes ma'am, roger that." _I really hope it doesn't come to that, Walker went rogue but she's not a security risk, if anything Bartowski's safer now than before._

"Wait, all of the devices went offline? What about the SM-93 you planted?"

"Well ma'am, the last known location of the SM-93 is in a Starbuck's about 3 miles from here."

"Begin the search there, although they probably won't be anywhere near it by now. Does the sister know anything?"

"Going by the surveillance she finished her shift at the hospital and arrived home at the normal time. No indication of anything out of the ordinary, but I'll keep extra watch on the surveillance."

"You mean like you should have been doing anyway, Captain."

"Yes ma'am."

"Well, here's what's going to happen; I will send every agent we can spare to aid you in finding the Intersect. There will be no CIA involvement in this as every agent they have sent seems to form an unhealthy attachment to the asset, as far as I am concerned the Intersect is a purely NSA project now. You have your orders; find Bartowski by any means necessary. Dismissed."

**--------------**

"Sir, we're getting reports from our moles within the CIA that an Agent Walker recently went rogue and kidnapped a former asset, presumably going off the grid with them," said a Fulcrum agent who ran into what appeared to be a bomb shelter beneath a drive-in cinema.

"Presumably there is a task force being set up to find them, Agent Price," said Agent Cushing.

"Yes sir, but it appears to be a purely NSA task force, and the agent in charge is Walker's former partner, Captain Casey."

"Captain? I thought Casey was a Major?"

"He was until recently, but it appears General Beckman didn't take too kindly to him losing his asset."

"Well he's gonna be pissed, nobody's more career driven than that guy. God help that asset if Casey catches up with him."

"Sir, if Walker was his partner, then that means that the asset is part of a joint NSA/CIA project. Do you realise what that could be?"

"Of course, the Intersect. We have to find Walker and the asset before Casey's team. Set up a task force, with every available agent, and get surveillance set up at Captain Casey's apartment complex, someone may let something slip."

"Yes sir, we'll see who Captain Casey enquires about, that should give us the identity of the Intersect."

"They'll likely have new identities if they're off the grid, so that's not a high priority."

"Yes sir."

"They can't hide for long, and Fulcrum will get the Intersect when we find them. Kill Walker."


	2. Planning

**A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed Chapter 1 of this story, they really help with the motivation to write.**

**---------------**

After the briefing with the General, Casey knew that the smart choice to start the investigation would be to see if Ellie knew anything about her brother leaving. They were so close that he had to have told her something, if Casey knew anything about his asset, which he liked to think he did, then it would be tearing Bartowski up to have to leave his family behind. He decided to go for the least inconspicuous route and just knocked on the apartment door; it wouldn't do if the asset's family caught him rifling through the asset's possessions. That would certainly cause cover issues, if his cover wasn't already blown. Ellie answered the door with barely concealed coldness towards Casey, a huge difference from her usual warm, welcoming demeanour.

"Yes, John?" she said.

"Hi...Ellie...is Chuck there?" asked Casey

"I thought you might be calling for him, his co-workers told me about you stalking him. Seriously, a 'Chuck diary'? Chloroform? You need help, John, serious professional help, but you're not getting any from me, that's my brother for god's sake!" shouted Ellie as she slammed the door in Casey's face, and Casey didn't withdraw his head in time, so the door impacted solidly with his nose, causing a shattering sound as the door rebounded off the soft cartilage.

Casey staggered from the blow, and his hands flew to his nose as blood streamed from it. _That was an unexpected reaction, and how did she find out about the paper surveillance, I bet it was one of those morons, maybe Jeff or Lester, they seem like the type to break into other people's lockers, I guess they have no respect for people's privacy, _thought Casey.

While Casey was musing on this, he considered the possibility that Ellie may have been lying, but there was no real way to tell without blowing his cover unless Ellie slipped and mentioned something. Unfortunately this meant that they were more or less without any leads until they got a break and the two former members of his team were spotted on CCTV or an undercover agent happened to spot them. The task force should be assembled by the end of the day, which at least minimized the head start that Bartowski and Walker had on them.

**---------------**

Beckman had called a briefing a couple of hours later, as the first agents for the task force were due to arrive in LA fairly soon, and she wanted a report on the status of the preliminary investigation that the two former Intersect handlers had conducted. Casey was not looking forward to explaining the strapping on his nose and the black eyes. He couldn't even try to butch it up a little because of the surveillance footage. _This wasn't going to be a good briefing_, thought Casey.

"Good evening, Agent Forrest, Captain Casey," began Beckman.

"Good evening General," replied the two agents.

"Captain, what happened to your nose?"

"There was an unforeseen occurrence when I went to question the asset's sister."

"And that was..."

"She had learned of the paper documents detailing some of the surveillance I had conducted on the asset, and she didn't take it too well. The injury was caused by the impact of the door to my face."

"You got a broken nose from the least violent person I've seen on this assignment?" laughed Forrest, struggling between a desire to maintain her professional front and to rib her partner over what couldn't have been his proudest moment.

"Quiet, Agent Forrest."

"Yes ma'am, my apologies."

"So, Captain Casey, do you believe that the asset's sister knows of Walker's return and subsequent departure with the asset?"

"I don't think so, but there's no way to be sure whilst also maintaining a cover. Our best hope is if she slips in an area which is under surveillance, but otherwise I don't see how we can get her to talk?"

"Would she respond to a forceful interrogation?" mused Forrest.

"She probably would, but it would cause way too many issues to do with cover, such as explaining where she went during the interrogation, and knowing your style, we'd have injuries to explain away too. Then there's making sure Dr. Bartowski doesn't talk either," said Casey.

"I agree with Captain Casey, it would be too troublesome to carry out an interrogation of Dr. Bartowski, especially when we're not sure if she is even aware her brother had left. Did she do anything out of the ordinary earlier, Captain?" said Beckman.

"Not that the surveillance picked up, she arrived back from work at her normal time, and she acted completely normally. There was a note in her hands as she entered the apartment, but that could have been work related and the risks to obtain it probably outweigh the benefits," explained Casey.

"Agreed. Agent Forrest, how did your preliminary investigation go?" asked Beckman.

"Not well, ma'am. I went to the Starbuck's where the tracker within the asset's phone went offline, but nobody had seen anything out of the ordinary and the CCTV footage wasn't clear enough to get an good picture of the car they're driving. All that could be seen is that it was a dark blue sedan, possibly a Volvo although the badge was not clear."

"They'll probably have ditched that car anyway, but could you get a clear registration number?"

"We got a partial reg which was run through the database, all that gave us was a list of cars at a rental station. We've checked out the list of people that have rented a car at that particular branch, but there were none of Walker's known aliases, so presumably she used her personal card."

"It's at times like these I almost wish we didn't teach our agents to go off the grid so effectively," said Beckman, "well, there doesn't appear to be much else we can do until the task force arrives, so I suggest you start looking around Bartowski's known haunts. If he tries to contact his sister it will be somewhere they both know."

"Yes ma'am, we'll contact you once the agents begin to arrive."

"See that you do," said Beckman as she cut the transmission.

Forrest got a confused look on her face as Casey sprang up and jogged up the stairs towards the Orange Orange, and asked him where he was going in such a hurry.

"I'm heading to the beach," answered Casey.

**---------------**

Sarah was driving away from the rental store after getting another car; she had been an agent for too long not to realise when she'd been caught on CCTV, and that their old rental had probably already been identified. She'd used her personal card for both rentals, and just trusted that it would take them long enough to figure out the connection between the two rental stations that they would have enough of a head start to make it to the safe house in Florida. It was going to be a very long drive, and they couldn't risk an airport, as even though their new passports had different names, it was too much of a risk to assume facial recognition software wouldn't be deployed as some point, and once Casey figured out which plane they'd gotten on and where it was headed, their safe house location would be a lot less secure.

"So, what's the plan, Sarah?" asked Chuck.

"Well first of all, here's your new identity. Passport, Florida Driver's License, Social Security Number and a new iPhone," said Sarah as she handed Chuck a package from the bag she'd been holding onto since they'd met up with Ellie.

"Charles Burton, nice to meet you," said Chuck with a goofy grin.

"And I'm Sarah Carmichael, good to meet you to," said Sarah, smiling back at him.

"Man, I wanted to be Carmichael," whined Chuck.

"You always get to be Carmichael, a change is good for you. Plus, that'll be the first alias they look for; it's safer this way. I had one of my analyst contacts do some covert hacking to place banking details for the past 5 years for both of us, so here's your bank card. There's $50,000 on the account, so don't go spending it all at once."

"$50,000? How long have you been planning this?"

"I started making preparations to go off the grid with you just after they tried to take you in when Fulcrum planted those bugs in the Buy More. I knew then that I wasn't going to let them take you to a bunker and I knew we'd have to run if the order ever came in. So ever since I've been depositing my wages in separate bank accounts, all under different aliases, and then transferring them around a few times until I had accounts for both of us with sufficient funds to survive without working for long enough to get out of the country."

"Is that the long term plan then, to leave the country?"

"It's the only way I can fully guarantee your safety. If we make it to a friendly country then they can protect us, and we'll be out of the government's reach."

"How long will it be before we can do that? I really want to get married as soon as possible."

"Me too, but we can't rush it. If Casey follows protocol, which I imagine he will, then guards at border stations will be made aware of our appearances, which will make crossing the border almost impossible, even in disguise, so we'll have to wait until the heat dies down a little and they aren't looking quite so hard for us."

"So, it'll be how long before we can leave?"

"I'd like to wait around a year, but circumstances change and we might have to wait longer or leave sooner. For now, I have a safe house we can use until the time comes. It won't be too comfortable as I haven't been there in about two years, but there's a nice old couple who look after the garden and make sure it's still standing."

"Where is this safe house then?"

"It's in Florida."

"I guess we have one hell of a drive ahead of us then."

"I guess so, I want to make it to San Bernardino tonight, we can find a motel there and stop for the night, but after that we'll just try to make it as far as possible each day. The further we get from LA the better."

"Can we ever go back? Like, if I get the Intersect out?"

"No, I went rogue, if we go back then I go to prison, or worse, and you go to prison for helping me. Besides, I thought Orion was the only one who could get the Intersect out, and he died in that helicopter."

Chuck suddenly fell silent, and had a sad look on his face, which Sarah immediately picked up on.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing, I'm fine," answered Chuck.

"I've known you for long enough to know when something's bothering you, so what is it?"

"I just feel so guilty, it was me that got the 49-B involved to start with, it was me that got you reassigned, and then when you come back, you give up your career and leave the only place you've ever said you felt comfortable, for me. What's so special about me that you're willing to leave everybody you love?"

"Chuck, if it was the only way for us to be together, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. Who knows if I ever would have been able to face up to my feelings for you if I wasn't leaving the next morning?"

"But still, you had to leave everyone you love; I know how much you missed Ellie while you were away."

"I did, and I will, but I didn't leave everyone I love. I still have you, and that's enough for me. Besides, I know how much your family and friends mean to you, and if there was any other way, believe me, I'd choose it, but I have no other options. If I had to be on the run for the rest of my life with anybody, I can't think of anyone I'd choose except for you. You're all I need, never forget that."

"You're all I'm ever going to need too. Sure I'll miss Ellie, but if the alternative was to be apart from you forever, then there isn't a choice. It's you, it's always you."

"Thank you, Chuck. I've never had anyone who I can depend on before. I'll never leave you again, and I can't wait until we've escaped so we can get married, and who knows? Maybe we could start a family together."

"Really? I never would have imagined you to be the type to enjoy the domestic life, although that suburbs mission should have dispelled those notions."

"I'd never thought about it or even thought I'd want it until I met you Chuck. You were the first person who ever made me question the choice I made. If you want me, I'll stay with you forever."

"Of course I want you, Sarah. You're all I've wanted for about eighteen months. The only reason I wanted the Intersect out was so that we could be together."

"You would have done that for me?"

"Of course, I'd do anything for you, Sarah."

"And I'd do anything for you, Chuck, I love you."

"I love you too, Sarah."

The rest of the drive continued in a happy, comfortable silence as Chuck and Sarah contemplated what life would be like once they escaped the government. Sarah was a little alarmed at the clarity with which she could see her wedding day, and she knew that was what would keep her going; the thought of being Mrs. Bartowski in spirit, even if she wasn't in name due to their required use of aliases. Soon enough they pulled up outside a motel which looked like a decent enough place to spend the night, and Chuck headed off to book a room while Sarah sorted out some of the loose ends in the covers she had created.

Soon, Chuck returned and led her to their room, looking a little uncomfortable because he wasn't yet entirely used to being able to call Sarah his _real_ girlfriend, and now she was his fiancée, it wasn't helping his nervousness at all. As they entered the room, Chuck gestured to the surroundings and turned to Sarah;

"So, uhm, as you can see, just the one bed..."

**---------------**

Fulcrum had been slightly more efficient in assembling their 'find the Intersect' task force. Twenty five agents were currently standing around the conference table in one of the Black Rock bunker's larger rooms. A couple were arriving late, as they were coming from the opposite coast, but other than that the meeting was ready to start.

"Well, most of you will already know each other, but I'd like to introduce some of the Agents we have drafted in from all over the country that have provided great information on finding the Intersect. To my left is Bruce Sparrow. Agent Sparrow was a part of the raid on the NSA substation which held the covers for the Intersect's handlers. His team was completely wiped out, including the cell leader; Yokaputo. Despite this, he still managed to escape with the Intelligence. Unfortunately the Intel was misleading, as it mentioned a store which closed over a year ago, but Agent Sparrow is going to be playing a large part in this search as his former cell was one of our most successful in terms of attempting to find the Intersect."

"Excuse me, sir, but doesn't he look like Bryce Larkin? Are we sure that he is who he says he is?"

"Agent Murray, he has been personally checked over by Ted Roark, and his story checks out. If it is Agent Larkin, he is doing a very good infiltration job, especially considering he should be flashing on everyone in this room. Does he look like he is flashing?"

"Maybe he can hide the flashes?"

"Not likely, Agent Gulbis. Our work with Perseus indicated the overload of information would cause a flash to be instantly recognisable. No, Agent Sparrow is not an Intersect, but he does have a large amount of expertise in terms of finding the Intersect, as he worked with Agent Walker for a very short amount of time. Any more questions?"

"No sir."

"Good. Now as I was saying, we have an agent in place on the NSA task force set up to locate the Intersect. Any Intel they receive will be relayed to us. We have also set up surveillance in Major, sorry Captain, Casey's apartment complex. If he hears anything in private, we should pick up on it."

**---------------**

The NSA agents were now beginning to arrive. If anyone was watching they might have been a little confused by the sudden upturn in patronage of the Orange Orange, but as it was late at night there was nobody to witness the stream of suited men entering the frozen yoghurt shop and walking past the counter into the freezer.

Casey was watching the agents entering Castle and running their names through the database of Fulcrum agents they had established from their recent successes against the rogue establishment. There weren't any hits, but that was understandable as their database was woefully incomplete. Once the steady influx of agents had stopped and Forrest came down from the store-front, he decided to get the meeting underway. It was probably only a formality to ask, as General Beckman wouldn't have sent an officer superior to him to be on the task force, but it was protocol.

"Who's the senior agent here?" asked Casey

"That's me, Major Kevin Wyndham, US Marines," replied an agent with what seemed to be a South Carolina accent.

_Major? Bartowski's cost me my rank and now I can't even command the task force to get his scrawny ass back?_

_I'm gonna kill him._


	3. Tracking

**A/N: I forgot to thank Yok for her beta of the last chapter, so I'm doing it here. Thanks Yok!**

**Anyway, here is Chapter 3 of Chuck Vs The Captain, thanks to Wep for the beta and comments, make sure you read his awesome stories. Enjoy!**

**By the way, I had to edit the last part of the chapter somewhat to keep the rating somewhere near a T, it's probably still close to M so there's your warning. I present to you, Chuck Vs The Colonel, kroblues style!**

**------------**

Casey was sitting at his 'Bartowski Surveillance Station' within his apartment checking the footage of the last moments Chuck had spent within the apartment complex in an effort to see if there was anything which could give him a clue where Chuck and Sarah might have been headed. He also had the live footage from the Bartowski's apartment open, just in case Ellie or Awesome mentioned something about Chuck. It was a long shot, to be sure, but Casey wanted to cover all of the bases; he wanted to stay above Lieutenant for the foreseeable future.

His motion sensors set just outside his door went off. It was probably nothing, but Casey hadn't stayed alive this long in the espionage game by thinking that way, so he pre-emptively unlatched the safety of his pistol before checking the sensors on the panel just to the side of the door. It was only Ellie Bartowski, with what looked to be a batch of cookies. _A peace offering perhaps?_ thought Casey. He had never been able to turn down Ellie Bartowski's cooking; it was one of his few weaknesses. He ran the usual weapon scans anyway, never one to take things at face value, and only once the scan came back negative did he open the door and greet his visitor.

"Hi, Ellie, what can I do for you today? Maybe you want to break one of my toes or a finger?"

"Er, yeah, it's about that that I came over," began Ellie nervously, "I wanted to apologise for yesterday. I may have overreacted slightly and I'm sorry."

_Well I guess that's one way of putting it. Still, she brought cookies._

"No problem, it's not like I haven't sustained accidental injuries before. After that toe incident at Christmas a broken nose is nothing, really. Are those chocolate chip?"

"Yeah, I brought these as a peace offering. I guess I freaked out when you asked about Chuck and I hoped you might forgive me."

"You're forgiven; maybe you should break some of my minor bones more often if it results in cookies."

_And they are chocolate chip! At least one of these Bartowskis is tolerable. Ellie would probably do more damage to me if she knew I was trying to hunt down and kill her brother though._

"Was there anything else you needed? It's just, I'm in the middle of something important at the moment."

"Oh! Sorry, John. I'll let you get back to that then. I just thought you might like to know that Chuck's heading out of town for a few days with Sarah. I got a voicemail from him about 5 minutes ago."

"Wal- Sarah's back? I thought she had a new job?"

"So did I, John, but apparently she quit and came back to be with Chuck. It's so sweet, don't you think?"

The smile that came to Casey's face was not an encouraging sight; he wasn't too used to having anything to smile about, but he was fairly happy that those two had some happiness, even if it was his job to take it away again.

_I hope they enjoy their Shenanigans before I catch up to them_, thought Casey, _and that voice mail is really going to cost them, I knew Bartowski couldn't leave without contacting his sister._

"Yeah, I've always thought she might have been a little out of Bartowski's league, but I guess stranger things of happened. It was nice talking to you, but I really have to get back to work, bye Ellie."

"See you soon, John."

As Casey shut the door Ellie started to smile broadly. Chuck had explained his plan to keep Casey off the trail for a few hours, and if the way Casey had hurriedly gotten rid of her and gone back to 'work' was any indication, Casey had taken the bait.

_Just be safe, Chuck_, thought Ellie.

Back in Casey's apartment, Casey was hurriedly setting up a secure connection to NSA Headquarters so he could get a trace on the phone that had made the call to Ellie. While he was waiting he decided to call up the call log from the bug that was currently residing within the landline phone in the Bartowski's apartment. The most recent seemed to be from Chuck's iPhone number, but that was probably too easy, so he decided to go with just tracking the phone that had made the call rather than putting all of his eggs in one basket and tracking the iPhone. The secure connection came up shortly and he was quickly barking out orders to the unfortunate analyst on the other end of the phone.

"I need a trace on an unregistered line that dialled the following number less than five minutes ago..."

**------------**

The sunlight streamed through the patchy curtains of the motel room that Chuck and Sarah were currently staying in. The inhabitants of the bed in the centre of the room did not stir from the light which illuminated the bed however. They were both exhausted from the adrenaline rush of the previous day. Getting engaged and then beginning to run from the entire U.S. Government would do that to a person. Chuck had suggested getting some Champagne to celebrate their engagement, but both were too tired to do more than contemplate the idea, so they merely headed to bed as soon as possible.

Chuck was first to stir, and he noticed that he was pushed as close as possible to Sarah's back as she spooned into him. His hand was above the cover but it was on her waist, and almost unconsciously Sarah pulled his arm into her with her free arm which was now covering Chuck's somewhat larger hand. By pulling Chuck's hand into her waist she had also ended up pushed harder into Chuck, which was causing a slightly uncomfortable reaction on Chuck's part, and it was very noticeable due to their proximity and Chuck's loose trousers.

Sarah still hadn't fully awakened, but she seemed to notice where Chuck's hand was, and she ran her fingers along the back of it, trying to telegraph how she felt with that simple touch. Chuck's hand certainly responded, as goose pimples erupted wherever Sarah's hand trailed. She continued her journey along the back of his hand until she came to his fingers, and her more slender fingers intertwined with Chuck's, as he tried to reciprocate what Sarah had already shown with his more limited range of movement.

Chuck had noticed Sarah's fingers beginning to play with the hand he had wrapped around her, and he could feel the tenderness she was trying to express with that simple action which words never could. He loved the way his skin reacted to her touch, as if it rose to elongate the contact with her, and it felt cold once she had moved further along the rest of his hand, where the same process repeated; a feeling of intense warmth and tenderness followed by a cold rush as he lost the precious point of contact with what he was coming to consider as the greater part of him. When she reached his fingers he saw his chance to reciprocate how he felt towards her. It was harder to show as his movements were still restricted, but he tried to show her as best he could. Sarah was always the one with actions, whereas he tried to use words to tell her how he felt. The only problem was that he knew that there _weren't_ words to describe how he felt. Even 'love' didn't come nearly close enough, and with as many superlatives as he could think of whilst still maintaining some flow of speech, he wouldn't be anywhere near describing it either. Love would have to do, but it was a much higher baseline than it was originally intended to mean. What Chuck intended it to mean was that they weren't two separate people anymore; they were one entity, and as their fingers intertwined it gave the metaphor even more meaning. It didn't just feel comfortable, it felt _right_, and he never wanted it to end.

Chuck decided to test if Sarah was awake and nuzzled softly into her neck, pressing himself even closer towards her in the process. Suddenly, Sarah turned in the bed, so that she was facing towards Chuck. At this proximity, Chuck could see clearly into her eyes. Those warm, blue eyes, which normally held no emotions, yet here they were open to him. So open. He could see the love which she held for him within them, and he knew it was reflected tenfold within his own eyes. There was nothing that could make Chuck want to end this moment, yet slowly, inexorably, he found himself being drawn towards Sarah. Their eyes met, and Chuck could see that no matter how much he might have wanted it, Sarah was just as desperate to be with him. Suddenly, as though a dam had burst, they launched themselves at one another, releasing months of barely released passion that the consummation of their engagement in the rental car had not come close to taking the edge off. They furiously kissed one another, neither one willing to let go for as long as possible to keep the moment intact.

While their previous kisses had been full of passion, they had also felt rushed. The first kiss happened while both thought there were 3 seconds to live in, and in the second kiss in front of Roan was both passionate and all too brief. They knew they were being watched and they couldn't dare succumb to their emotions, not with someone so close to Beckman standing in the room with them. On the other hand, this kiss was still just as passionate, but there was no predetermined time limit upon it, only how long they wanted it to go before..._other considerations_... came into play, namely trying to avoid running whilst dealing with pregnancy hormones. Both Chuck and Sarah were overcome with passions and emotions, but they were both coherent enough to realise that fact.

Chuck leaned back after their kiss had developed into him lowering Sarah onto the bed of the motel room. As romantic settings went, this would not be high on the list, but all that mattered to Chuck was the beautiful woman lying beneath him, her eyes unfocused and a smile on her face as if she were in the midst of a wonderful dream. A similar smile made its way to Chuck's face as he realised he was the cause of that look of total bliss. The lack of contact was going on for too long, and he once again joined his mouth with Sarah's, savouring every point of contact between them, lamenting the clothes that covered them and preventing even more contact. He had to get something before they could remove them though, he'd got pretty good at controlling himself when it came to Sarah over the past year, but having her below him, ready, would be just too much to overcome.

"Don't move...don't move...don't breathe...don't move"

He didn't even make an effort to hide the bulge in his boxers as he ran to the bathroom, but Sarah was a little too preoccupied with trying to cool down to notice as she flopped back onto the bed with a palm over her forehead.

_What the hell was that?_ thought Sarah, _I've never felt anything like that before_.

Chuck ran into the bathroom and rifled quickly through the contents of his trouser pockets, looking for his wallet which contained the only thing which concerned him at the moment. He was trying not to think what might be waiting for him on the bed, and focused on finding the magic package within his wallet. When he found what seemed to be a slip of paper confusion flickered across his face and his brow furrowed. He pulled what seemed to be a folded note from the compartment of his wallet normally reserved for an emergency condom. As he unfolded it all of his dreams for the morning came crashing down.

_IOU One condom_

_Your pal,_

_Morgan_

"I'm gonna kill you, Morgan," growled Chuck as he crumpled the note and threw it onto the floor in disgust.

**------------**

Casey got a result on the trace fairly quickly, and the result it gave did look promising; a house in the suburbs could feasibly be a safe house, and it showed that the phone hadn't been ditched. _Maybe Bartowski made the call without Walker's knowledge_, thought Casey, _and I don't envy Bartowski for the world of hurt he's entered if that's the case_. Once he had a positive location, he retrieved his favourite gun, which he had named 'Destiny', fixed the suppressor in position and slid it into the waistband of his jeans, and grabbed a jacket as he headed out of the door, activating his extensive security system in the process.

The Crown Vic arrived at Castle in record time. Casey had briefed Forrest on the way over and she was currently relaying the information to the commander of the task force; Major Wyndham. Casey's position as head of surveillance, in addition to his rank; which still kept him as the second most superior officer present, afforded him a certain amount of control over the investigation. Major Wyndham seemed to be a very hands-off sort of leader. He could see the wider picture, which allowed for the subordinate officers to focus on the smaller objects. For Casey, this was using his connections with the asset's family in order to give a greater chance of a slip in the Intersect's escape. _Which is exactly what happened, you're on borrowed time now, Bartowski. I'll teach you to get me demoted._

Casey entered Castle through the Orange Orange, as was usual for him when heading to a briefing. Of course, it wasn't normally him giving the briefing, but there was a first time for everything. He surveyed the room, and saw several expectant pairs of eyes looking up at him. Most looked tired; several of them had had long flights to LA, but all were alert and listening to Casey. He took up a position just to the right and in front of Major Wyndham, while Forrest took up a similar position to the Major's left. He began the briefing by calling up a satellite image of the area to which the phone call had been traced.

"As you may know, our target made a call to his sister about twenty minutes ago, which allowed us to trace him to this location," began Casey, tapping the house where the call had originated from for emphasis.

"Excuse me sir, but our target made an unsecured call, to a family member, while off the grid?"

"The target is for all intents and purposes, a civilian. Minimal combat skills, and very inexperienced in spy craft. It was a matter of time before he slipped, Lieutenant," answered Casey.

"So, why did General Beckman assign so many of us to look for him?"

"Because he is a very important national security asset, but also because he went off the grid with Agent Sarah Walker," said Casey. This drew surprised looks from some agents and also slight looks of apprehension from some of the younger ones.

"Yes, that Agent Walker," continued Casey, "the one that set all of those records at the academy and probably the best operative the CIA had to offer. I worked with her for a couple of years, and believe me, she's as good as the stories say. Trust me when I say this, if you find Bartowski, Walker _will_ be somewhere nearby, and if you try to apprehend her, take a full team with you. She won't leave Bartowski unless she's in no state to do anything about it. Shoot first and we'll question Bartowski later. Here is a picture of her taken from surveillance yesterday. As you can see, she is very easily recognised and very memorable."

"You could say that sir, Bartowski must be one lucky guy."

"Not when she finds out he made that call," answered Casey, "We move on this"-he tapped the picture again- "location in ten, get your weapons and head out the back way to the vehicles. If you see Bartowski, the shot is _mine_, got it?"

"Yes sir!" came the chorus from the assembled agents.

_I guess a trank dart will have to do until I can take out my frustrations during the interrogation_, thought Casey.

**------------**

Chuck emerged from the bathroom with a very frustrated look on his face, which both amused and worried Sarah. After the way they had woken, it would be very unfair to have to make do without the release she had been building towards during the make-out session. By the look on Chuck's face, she had to assume that the condom search had not gone well. She decided to be a little cruel to him, it was mean but he looked so cute to her when he was frustrated.

"Errm, Sarah...I kinda have bad news," began Chuck nervously

"What do you mean by that, Chuck?" asked Sarah, calling on her training to keep a straight face.

"Well, I went looking for the condom in my wallet. Wait, you do know that's what I was doing, right?"

Sarah almost had to laugh at how nervous he was, and yet she was touched at how much he wanted to not disappoint her.

"Yes Chuck, I knew. What do you propose we do about that little issue?"

"Errm, well I suppose I could go ask the manager if there's anywhere I can buy some..."

"Oh I don't think that's necessary."

Chuck's confusion only increased, which caused Sarah's composure to break, and she rolled around the bed in convulsions of laughter, which didn't help with Chuck's utter bemusement.

"Err, Sarah? What's so funny?"

"It's...just...you...look...so...cute...when...you're...confused," said Sarah, struggling to get the words out because of her laughter. Chuck gave her a moment to calm down before he decided to find out what was really causing it.

"So, why isn't it necessary for me to get a condom?"

"Err, well, I bought a box when we stopped off at that store, so we have plenty."

"And you didn't tell me this before because..."

"Like I said, you're so cute when you're confused."

"I'll give you cute," said Chuck, as he quickly removed his clothes and practically leaped at Sarah, who, while being surprised, was entirely receptive to the development. She reached to the cabinet at the side of bed for a condom and passed it to Chuck, all the while not relenting with the kisses and trying to pull off her clothes while maintaining as much contact as possible. It took Chuck a few goes to successfully apply the condom, as he was so distracted by Sarah's attention to certain parts of him, but once he got it on successfully, he held Sarah tightly and lowered her to the bed, her legs settling comfortably around his hips as they held on to each other, never wanting to let too much space come between them again.

About 20 minutes later, while Chuck and Sarah were both lying together on the bed, still holding each other close, Chuck had a strange thought that if they had gone to a motel in Barstow that probably wouldn't have happened. Knowing his luck, Casey would have found him and put him in a Castle holding cell as soon as he went to get a condom.

_Thank God that didn't happen,_ thought Chuck.


	4. Storming

**A/N: I had to decide whether or not to put the resolution to Casey's tracking of the call at the end of the last chapter or the beginning of this one. As it was, I decided to finish the last one with Charah, so it's going in the start of this chapter. Thanks to Wep for the beta, and thanks to Sm93Starbuck for sorting out a place name issue I had. Please review, it's good to know what everyone thinks of my work, be it good or bad.**

**----------**

The convoy of vehicles heading towards the house located somewhere in Encino. It wouldn't have been that bad, but NSA agents always seemed drawn to Crown Victorias of varying ages, so it was a column of black and brown Crown Vics that were rapidly approaching the cul-de-sac, and with well drilled, military precision a couple of the Crown Vics peeled off from the main column and blocked off the street slightly further on, and another couple waited behind the column to do the same at the other end of the street. The target house was around a quarter of the way around the ring if you started at the top and worked your way anti-clockwise. A couple more Crown Victorias stopped at the entrance to the cul-de-sac while the agents piled out and made their way to the back of the house, guns drawn in order to stop a breakout attempt once the agents stormed the front of the house.

Casey was driving the lead Vic, while Major Wyndham sat in the passenger seat, directing the four remaining Crown Victorias which were still in formation behind them with a walkie-talkie. He was beginning to have second thoughts about whether or not it was right for him to bring Bartowski in and to condemn Walker to a 9mm round somewhere lethal. Casey wasn't even sure if this was the right location, but then again, he thought, what safe house actually looked like a safe house from the outside? Usually the best defence was to hide in plain sight, but not now. Walker was probably wishing she had chosen somewhere a little more easily defended right about know, thought Casey. That was, if she was in any position to defend, even a trained spy couldn't pull a weapon whilst not wearing any clothes. _Wait, that's not what I want to be thinking about, I could go blind just imagining Bartowski and Walker...fornicating_. He got a slightly disgusted look on his face from even thinking about it, which was why he was glad, for once, that he wasn't going to be part of the team storming the house. Missing out on gunplay was a fair trade to avoid walking in on them being..._together_. He shuddered again at the thought.

The Vics pulled up by the house, two on the surrounding driveways and the other two blocking an exit from the target driveway. The command vehicle was parked behind them, giving the Major a wide view of the area to be stormed. Each Vic had two agents within them, and one from each pulled open a door to provide cover, while the other moved to their pre-designated positions. Two agents stood by either side of the front door, while another two from the cars that had moved to the rear did the same at the back door. The agents from the vehicles that had parked on the surrounding driveways each moved to a side window where they could see into the house, it wouldn't be good for them to storm in blind; the agents on the front door could be storming into a death trap. Walker could have been waiting on the other side of the door for them for all they knew; although the smart play for any trained agent would be to cover the hallway from the stairs, thereby negating any advantage accrued through multiple points of entry. Still, it was always good to check. The agent covering the left checked in first with Wyndham, although both gave the same basic message.

"Looks clear, sir. Smart money would be on Walker moving herself and the target upstairs as soon as she heard multiple engines. I'd recommend we move in quiet as possible, clear the downstairs rooms we can't see and then move upstairs with flashbangs."

"I agree with your assessment Lieutenant, is there an easy point of entry for you?"

"Yes sir! The window into the kitchen seems to be open. Sloppy behaviour for an agent of Walker's quality."

"Or a trap to lull you into a false sense of security. Stay alert and go on my command. That goes for you too, Agent Hart."

"Copy that, sir," came the answer from the agent covering the right, and he prepared to prise open the window leading to the downstairs bathroom.

Major Wyndham flicked the setting on his command radio to the wider frequency being used by the entire team.

"Team, we are go to move into the house, stay quiet as possible until we clear the lower floor. Eyes on the property shows no movement but stay alert. Report in once the ground floor is clear."

A rapid chorus of "Yes sir" filled the answering radio, followed by silence as the teams prepared to move in.

The teams at both the front and rear entrances shot out the locks of the doors with a burst of suppressed fire before pushing them open and rapidly moving into the house. This was the cue for the agents waiting at the side to move in, and they climbed through the windows and cleared their rooms. Soon enough the entire bottom floor was clear and there didn't even appear to be the faintest inkling that anybody upstairs -if there was anyone upstairs- had noticed their forceful incursion.

The quiet calls of "Clear" came through the Major's radio. He wasn't surprised; any agent would have quickly moved to a more defensible position, but they were certain nobody had left the house after they had arrived, so that only left the top floor. If Walker was there, she would likely have a visual on the stairs, so the only viable option to minimise casualties was to flashbang the top floor and move in while she was still disorientated.

"Okay, I need two flashbangs simultaneously onto the stairs and onto the top landing, with three agents following immediately after the explosions. Same as before, clear each room individually. They've gotta be here somewhere," barked the Major into his radio, and he once again received a chorus of "Yes sir" in answer.

The two agents that stormed the front readied their flashbangs, and from their position in the hallway they had a fairly good idea where Walker would be. It was the only feasible option left to her. She would be on the landing to the left of the staircase, which would give her a perfect visual on anybody trying to climb the stairs. All of their plans had been based on Captain Casey's assessment that the target had low weapon skills, but it only took a lucky shot and a mother somewhere was getting a letter of condolence. So it paid to be careful. One flashbang on the stairs and one at the top; standard procedure for a retrieval operation like this, and it had been so deeply ingrained in every agent's psyche they could probably do an operation like this with their eyes closed.

"Benitez, you ready?" asked Agent Johnson.

"You know it. On three! One. Two. Three!"

The flashbangs landed exactly as planned, and the agents diverted their eyes to avoid temporarily blinding themselves. This was where they had the advantage; they were expecting the noise, whereas the target wasn't, which meant that the other agents were moving rapidly up the stairs as soon as the grenades went off. This phase of the operation went exactly as planned, as the three agents moved up the stairs, lining up their sights to fire on Walker as they moved up the stairs. The landing came into view, and the lead agent turned to sight on...

Nothing.

"What the hell? Hart, Bird, get up here and clear out those two rooms," said Benitez, indicating which rooms he meant. There were four rooms in total on the top floor, and it appeared that the one on the end of the landing was the most likely option to contain their target. Therefore they would have two agents covering the door while the others cleared out the rooms. This went off with military precision, as each agent stood by a door, pushed it open and forced their way into the rooms, submachine guns raised high. Each of the preceding three rooms had turned out clear, so the agents gathered around the final door, ready to see what was either going to be an empty room, their target, or an extremely embarrassing situation for everyone involved in this raid.

They pushed the door open and barged into the final room, which looked to be a teenager's bedroom. Complete with teenager. _Damn, guess it was the last option then_, thought Benitez. The kid had his back to the door, headphones on and playing music so loud Benitez could hear it clearly from across the room. It was so loud Benitez had a feeling he could have fired his weapon without the suppressor and the kid wouldn't have noticed. In the end he just settled for tapping him on the shoulder.

The sight which greeted the teenager as he whirled around was not an expected one. With ever widening eyes he took in the sight in front of him, which included five tall, very heavily armed men with bulletproof jackets on.

"Crap..." he stammered, "if this is about that file I downloaded, I swear, I didn't know it was illegal!"

"Shut up and come with us," said one of the agents standing behind Benitez, and he led the kid back down the stairs and through the house. Thankfully not too much damage had been caused except for the locks on the exterior doors, which should at least minimise the blowback that was certain to come from this. He led the kid out into the bright sunlight where Captain Casey and Major Wyndham were both looking extremely angry. They certainly had a right to be, they had both severely screwed up on this one. Well, mainly Captain Casey, but Major Wyndham was the superior officer, so it was his ass on the line.

"What the hell is this about, Benitez? Were we not clear enough what our target was?"

"Yes sir, you were very clear, but I thought it might be best if you explained the situation to this kid."

"Right then, send him over to the command vehicle, and get the rest of the agents to search the house, see what caused the trace to end up pointing to here."

"Got it sir."

Major Wyndham led the kid over to the command vehicle, and beckoned for Casey to come over to explain just why several armed agents had stormed his house only a couple of minutes ago.

"Well, kid, I guess you're wondering what just happened."

"You could say that."

"I can't be too specific, as this is part of an ongoing investigation, but we were acting on intelligence given to us by remote surveillance which indicated your house was our target location."

"What does that mean?"

"Captain Casey over here," said the Major, indicating Casey with a wave of his arm, "traced a cell phone call our target made about an hour and a half ago. That trace led us here, which is why your house is currently surrounded by around twenty heavily armed federal agents."

"Sir, you better take a look at this," came a voice from by the entrance to the house. Benitez was walking out holding what looked like an iPhone. _You can't be serious_, thought Casey as he went to meet the agent.

"And what is _this_?" asked Casey.

"It looks to be an iPhone, Captain. This particular phone dialled the number you indicated around an hour and a half ago. The number was pre-set into the phone to dial it at that time, probably to throw us off the trail."

Casey turned back to the kid, a look of barely concealed anger on his face as he growled out his next words.

"Where did you get this phone?"

"I found it, I swear! It was in a Coffee shop, just lying on a table. Nobody claimed it after about fifteen minutes so I took it. Why? Was it important?"

_Damn you, Bartowski. If I keep my rank after this one you can bet you're getting the most painful weapon I can find straight into your crotch, and then I'll shoot you. If you're lucky._

Suddenly, Casey's anger boiled over and he threw the phone against the wall, where it shattered into several small pieces.

"Hey!" shouted the kid, "you can't do that!"

"National Security and this badge mean I can do more or less whatever the hell I want, now get out of my way before I do something I might regret."

**----------**

After Chuck and Sarah's morning 'exercise', Sarah had insisted that they got moving as quickly as possible. She wanted to be as far away from LA as they could be before Casey figured out the little ruse they had played with the iPhone. It was going to be a very long drive before they made it to Florida and the safe house Sarah had chosen to use, and anything could happen on the road there, so it was an understandably tense atmosphere in the car. Chuck decided to lift some of the tension with a light topic of conversation to lead into the real questions he wanted to ask.

"So, what do you think our lives would be like if this was Star Wars?"

"Original or new trilogy?" responded Sarah, as if this was the most normal topic of conversation for a CIA, _wait, former CIA_, Agent.

"Both, actually."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, what if we were like, characters from the prequels and then our kids, wait...you do want kids don't you? That's not important, but what _is_, is that our hypothetical kids, would play the main part in the original trilogy."

"So, which character would you be then?"

"I guess I'd have to be Anakin really; new kid who does surprisingly well and he finds the love of a beautiful woman."

"So I'd be Padme?"

"Exactly, although she dies, so maybe not."

"Chuck, everyone dies at the end of the first ones. Except Obi-Wan, and Anakin, sort of."

"Casey would have to be Obi-Wan. I know you're sort of my mentor, but Casey carries off a beard better than you. That would mean trusting him to raise one of our kids though; I don't see him doing well with children."

"If you're Anakin, wouldn't that mean you'd go over to the dark side at some point? I can't see you doing that."

"The only way it would happen is if everyone that I cared for died and I was made to believe, somehow, that the Government were responsible for it. That's the only way, or maybe to get you back if you were taken by them."

"You'd do that for me?" asked Sarah with a slightly shocked tone; she'd never had anyone willing to turn against the government for her.

"I thought we'd been over this? I love you. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you," said Chuck tenderly.

"Thank you, I love you too Chuck, so much that I can't put it into words," said Sarah as she gripped Chuck's hand to drive home the point.

"One more thing, Chuck. When we do have kids, we're not naming them Luke or Han, or Leia for a girl. Just not happening."

"What about Kate if it's a girl?" asked Chuck.

"Kate. I like that name. We probably won't have to deal with that problem for a while though because you don't want to be on the run with a pregnant, hormonal, killer spy."

"I would if that spy was you," responded Chuck softly.

**----------**

"You mean to tell me that not only do we not have any clue where the target and Walker are, our only lead turned out to be false, and the inadvertent victim of said lead is likely to sue! Remind me why you should still even be a Captain?!"

Beckman was fuming at Casey and also at Major Wyndham, who was surprisingly not bearing the full brunt of her anger, as Casey was the one who had misinterpreted the data available,; and it was he that had recommended such an overt raid on a location which hadn't even been confirmed to hold the target.

"That is correct ma'am. We were acting on Intel which seemed to be true at the time based on previous experiences of the target and his likely mental state. It was a guess that he might have tried to contact his sister in some way, so we didn't question the call when it did came in."

"And you didn't think that Walker would have stopped him from making that call?"

"I doubt that Walker was even aware of him making the call. The target can be...persistent...when it comes to trying to do something he views as important, and he tends to withhold information if he believes it could harm his chances. We saw that from the unauthorised search he performed to find Orion a few months ago. He only informed us once he had no choice. It was likely that Bartowski had done the same here, but now it is clear that the whole thing was a ruse to distract us while Bartowski and Walker got further away from us."

"So, we have absolutely no clues, and the most important asset in the country could be anywhere. Is that about it?"

"Yes ma'am. We do know that they will not have been able to leave the country however. Guards at every border post have been made aware of their appearance, and they will not have had enough time to change their appearances enough and cross the border yet. If they do attempt it, the facial recognition software we have placed on the computers should inform us if their passport photos match up with Bartowski's and Walker's. If they're anywhere ma'am, they're still in the country. Best guess is that Walker is heading for one of her safe houses. I recommend we make contact with any former partners she may have who know of the locations of any of her safe houses and set up surveillance on them A.S.A.P."

"I agree, Captain. We will make contact with Walker's surviving former partners as soon as we can. As for now, continue to monitor the target's family and any of their communications. We have authorisation to intercept their post, so get some agents on it as soon as is feasible. If Bartowski tries to contact them, it is imperative we find out as quickly as possible. We don't want too many fiascos like today, but if they lead us to Bartowski then they might be worth it. Any questions?" asked Beckman, before shutting down the connection to the agents in Castle.

"Ok guys," began Wyndham, "you heard the General, set up the interceptions and taps. We need another two agents to support Captain Casey in his surveillance efforts. Get to it."

"Yes sir!" came the answering calls.

**----------**

"What do you want our wedding to be like?" asked Chuck. Sarah was starting to tense up and he thought she needed to relax. Even though she was the trained agent, she seemed tenser about this than he did. Maybe it was because he knew that if she hadn't done it, he'd be in a bunker, so if they got caught he hadn't lost anything, and had gained the wondrous memories of his time with Sarah. Not to say he was ready for it to end; he doubted he'd be ready even in fifty years; so much a part of him was Sarah. On the other hand, Sarah had given up everything to rescue him and she had more to lose if they were caught. This was just Chuck's way of taking her mind off that possibility, and he was never happier than when Sarah was happy.

"I don't know," came the quiet reply, "so long as I'm Mrs. Bartowski at the end of it I'll be happy."

"You mean to say that you've never thought about getting married as a kid? I thought every girl did."

"My lifestyle wasn't exactly conducive to getting married, even as a little girl. Whenever I did think of it though I was always in a big church, with all of my family and friends around me, and I was wearing a beautiful dress. I don't think that will be in my future though," finished Sarah sadly.

"I might not be able to help you with the family part, but if you want a church wedding, then that's what you're going to get. We might not be a particularly normal couple, hell it took you leaving for us to be able to admit our feelings, and there probably isn't a dull, white picket fence, lifestyle in our future, but so long as we're together I'll dedicate my life to making sure you're happy," said Chuck with such conviction Sarah couldn't help but be sure that if Chuck said it, it would happen and he wouldn't rest until it did. It gave her such comfort to finally be able to rely on someone like that. Even as a child her father had instilled the belief that nobody could be trusted, but somehow Chuck had broken through those years of conditioning, and she was glad he had.

"I don't deserve someone like you," said Sarah softly, almost so softly Chuck didn't hear her.

"Hey, hey. Don't be like that. You're the best thing that ever happened to me. You might be beautiful on the outside, but compared to on the inside, there's no comparison at all. As corny as it sounds, you complete me. I can't live without you, and if anything, I don't deserve you."

"Really? You're not just saying that to make me feel better?" asked Sarah, almost as if she had converted to a small girl in front of Chuck.

"Of course, I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it with all my heart."

"In that case, thank you Chuck. It means so much that I can count on you," said Sarah as she leaned over to him as far as she could. Chuck, seeing what she was trying to do, met her in the middle as they rested their heads together in an incredibly awkward embrace; the rental wasn't the best car for romantic stuff, so Chuck decided to ask Sarah to pull over as quickly as possible so they could take advantage of the charged passions that were running through them at this point.

Within minutes they were in the process of losing another rental deposit.


	5. Meeting

**A/N: Apologies for the third "section". It was written in a very sleep deprived state. Big thanks to Wepdiggy who helped with the location of the safe house, make sure you read his stories, there really is one for everybody in his locker, thanks to Yokaputo for the beta and thanks to everyone who has reviewed thus far, and to those of you who haven't... Review, review now! That's probably all the thanks out of the way then. On with the chapter...**

**------------**

It had been two months since Chuck and Sarah had safely made it to their safe house in Daytona, Florida. There hadn't been many issues on the extraordinarily long drive from Los Angeles to Florida, made longer by frequent _recreational_ stops, except for the one time Chuck had been driving and they had been pulled over for speeding, luckily Sarah's CIA badge wasn't put under too much scrutiny, and the National Security story meant that they were let go without much fuss. Of course, Chuck didn't drive again after that incident, but Sarah preferred to drive anyway. It let her mind wander whilst still having something to concentrate on, thereby keeping her relaxed but alert; the optimal state of mind for an agent.

Once they actually made it to the safe house, it took a couple of days for them to make it somewhat hospitable. The house sitters that Sarah had didn't do a particularly good job, and new furniture had to be bought before they could even consider sleeping once they had arrived. The house, a medium sized semi-detached house in the suburbs looked just like any other. It was what rookie agents were taught in training; if something stands out that something is a target. The stakes were too high for any risks at this time. Sarah knew that if they were caught the odds were one or both of them would be killed, and even if they weren't, they would be separated. After the long months apart, Sarah didn't think she could go through that again, not now they were so close to escaping everything.

They had arrived in Florida in mid-December. The weather was not dissimilar to LA, but that only provided upsetting reminders of what both Chuck and Sarah had left behind. Luckily, the tourists had all but disappeared, which made the Agent side of Sarah a lot more comfortable; the fewer large crowds the more any agents sent to capture them would stand out. There were no indications that there were any agents following them, as far as she could tell there wasn't any form of surveillance on the house, and Chuck hadn't flashed since they had come out here. It was as if every bad guy on the planet only seemed to put their plans into action in LA. Sarah wouldn't have been surprised if Fulcrum could have been destroyed by just taking out one base with an F-16 airstrike, the amount of Fulcrum agents she had seen working in and around LA.

Christmas had been tinged with a slightly sad aura. Both Chuck and Sarah were wishing they could be in LA, savouring Ellie's perfectly cooked Christmas dinner with their friends and family, but as it was, it was just them, sharing a small turkey along with the usual adornments. Chuck had attempted to set a happier mood, and his mission was accomplished once the candlelight glinted off Sarah's engagement ring and split the light into a beautiful pattern on the ceiling. Sarah had been enraptured by the patterns of light as they danced, and she realised how silly she was being. If she wasn't here with Chuck, then she'd either be in a very tense and awkward Christmas dinner as she and Chuck attempted to maintain at least a facade of professionalism, or she'd be in a hotel room, alone, as she tried to forget what she'd been forced to leave behind. Given those choices, there was nowhere she'd rather be at this point in time, even if she did have most of the NSA funding currently devoted to finding her and her fiancée. The fact that one of her contacts was indicating that the task force set up to find them wasn't reporting any breakthroughs was encouraging, but Sarah wanted to wait at least until next year to attempt to cross the border into Mexico, and from there catch a flight, probably to somewhere in Europe. Of course she'd have to teach Chuck a couple of languages before then, maybe Italian and German, although Spanish would help them whilst in Mexico itself too. She had wondered if she could use the Intersect technology to teach him quickly, but she didn't have the technology, the time or the funding to make it happen, even if she could pull it off without the government finding out. If they could find Orion, if he had survived somehow, then he might know how to do it, but it was too great a risk to be sidetracked and risk exposure to the NSA.

It was now mid-February, and they were coming up to Valentine's Day. Sarah was half hopeful and half worried about whether Chuck would do something. If it was too extravagant it might cause too much attention to be drawn to them, but if he didn't do anything she would be extremely disappointed; Sarah was looking forward to at least one normal event in a relationship, and that first Valentine's Day was always a special one, even if they had spent a couple of awkward days together on past Valentine's when it was all still a cover-but-possibly-more.

Chuck, of course, did have something planned out, but it counted on them being able to avoid the race crowds. _Who schedules a race on Valentine's Day?_ Chuck had wondered, but then he figured out that the normal race-goers were not generally the type to try and get reservations to a romantic restaurant on Valentine's Day, so he'd gone ahead with his plans to make their first 'real' Valentine's Day as special as possible. He'd gone for the cliché roses and chocolates, but he had a surprise planned for Sarah that he'd been waiting for the right moment to spring, and their first real Valentine's day seemed to be that right moment.

That night, as they lay cuddled together on the bed that had been bought on that desperate shopping trip two months ago, Chuck couldn't help but feel elated at the sequence of events that brought Sarah to him, even if they had culminated in him being forced to leave almost everyone he cared about, but he'd give it all up again to be with Sarah.

He'd even managed to forgive Bryce.

**------------**

Devon had had a long day at the hospital, pulling a double shift and having to perform several dull, tedious minor surgeries tended to make him even happier to get out of his scrubs and head home. Ellie had adapted surprisingly well to the news that Chuck had decided to move to New York to be with Sarah. Even the lack of calls weren't getting her down, which was strange to Devon; he had always thought that the siblings were never out of contact. What was also strange was that Ellie had insisted that they go ahead with the wedding after Chuck had left. She had made them postpone it once Sarah had left, but when Chuck had followed her Ellie had had the opposite reaction, and they had got married as quickly as all of the guests could make it into town and a venue could be obtained. The church had been unavailable, so Ellie got her beach wedding after all.

Devon had often wondered if his wife had some information about her brother's leaving that he wasn't privy to, but he trusted that if Ellie had information, she also had a good reason not to tell him, so he hadn't pushed her on it. Now however, he was slightly freaking out at trying to make their first married Valentine's Day as special as possible. He'd considered a ton of possibilities, but not one seemed anywhere near good enough. Now with only a week left he still had nothing planned out, and was about to go to the standby of a cabin in the woods. Some privacy, a romantic setting and candlelight would certainly be a good thing to settle with, but he was Awesome, and Awesome isn't a settling word. Still, he was desperate. He was lost in thought as he turned the key in the lock and was barely through the door before he saw Ellie standing before him, a huge smile on her face.

"What's up, babe?" he asked.

"Oh nothing much," answered Ellie. "So what do you have planned for Valentine's Day?"

"You're not gonna catch me out like that, babe, but it's gonna be Awesome, don't worry about that."

"Oh no, it wasn't anything like that. I was just thinking, maybe I could do the planning this year. You've done something so romantic every year, I think it's time I showed you just how much I love you."

"But you do, every night. Sometimes multiple times per night," said Devon with all his usual subtlety.

"Not like that," said Ellie, as she slapped his arm.

"Ok, I'll bite. What did you have in mind?"

"I hoped you'd say that. I got us two tickets to the Daytona 500! I know how much of a race fan you are, and I've always wanted to go to Florida, so why not make this into a romantic vacation for the two of us to spend some time together?"

"Are you sure you want to spend Valentine's Day at a track? I don't think you'd find it that fun."

"Oh I know it's just cars going round a circle for ages, but if that's the only sacrifice I have to make then I'm prepared to make it."

"Awesome! Wait, what about our hospital shifts?"

"I already sorted it, we have next week off, and we don't have to be back until two days after the race. The flight leaves in a couple of hours, so get packing and we'll head to the airport. It's going to be so much fun!" Ellie practically squealed.

It only took a couple of minutes for Devon to pack (Ellie had already sorted out her stuff), and soon they were heading to the airport for a flight to Daytona.

It was going to be an interesting week.

**------------**

The day before Valentine's Day, and Daytona was starting to get a little hectic as race fans flooded in from all over the country. Okay, it was mostly the south of the country, but they were still flooding in. Chuck had managed to persuade Sarah to let them leave the house so they could get some much needed supplies in; they were starting to run a little low on food, and were more or less down to condiments and cheese. Not a good combination so Sarah went against her better instincts and decided to brave the crowds so they could get some food. She knew it wasn't a good idea to accept his offer for them to spend a little time clothes shopping to help her relax, but his reasoning seemed sound. After all, who would look for a deadly former intelligence officer in a shoe shop? Bryce might; he knew of her weakness for shoes, but nobody else. She was so secure in the fact that they should be safe that it was a great shock for her to hear the next words out of Chuck's mouth.

"Oh crap."

"What? What is it Chuck? Did you flash?"

"No, no flash. But what I did just see is a woman who looks just like my sister heading our way."

"I guess you're right, oh crap. Has she seen us?"

"I don't think so...no, wait, she's looking at us. She's definitely seen us alright.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well she's running towa-"

"Chuck!" came Ellie's shout.

"-rds us," finished Chuck lamely.

"Chuck! What are you doing here?" asked Ellie.

"Could ask you the same thing, Ellie," answered Chuck.

"We're on holiday. Devon should be somewhere around here," said Ellie, looking around for her husband.

"Chuckster!" came Awesome's booming voice from behind him, "Sarah, good to see you too! How's New York?"

"New York?" began Chuck before an elbow in the side from Sarah shut him up.

"New York's great. Awesome, even. We're having so much fun there but it's nice to get away for a while," said Sarah.

"Couldn't agree more, never had you two pegged for race fans though."

"Er, yeah, that was kinda my fault," began Chuck uncertainly.

"This one forgot to check if there were any major events before he booked the house we're renting for the week," finished Sarah for him.

"No way man! You forgot the Daytona 500? That is not Awesome, bro."

"So I don't follow the races much, sue me," answered Chuck.

"So, is there anywhere we can go to catch up?" asked Ellie

"Sure, you can come with us back to our place," said Chuck. He was looking forward to getting a chance to explain things to his sister properly, if she wanted an explanation, without the time constraints of last time.

**------------**

On the drive back to 'temporary Casa Bartowski', as Chuck had begun calling it, Ellie and Awesome both began to realise that there was probably a little more to the story of Chuck and Sarah's house than a simple rental; they both knew the route completely instinctively, more so than if they had only spent a week or so there beforehand. Ellie, of course, had some idea why this was the case, as she had no idea where Chuck and Sarah had gone, and the New York story was just that, a story. Ellie was a little upset that her brother had been forced to run and leave everything behind, but from the way he was looking at Sarah Ellie could see that he had managed to find at least something to be happy about in all of this madness.

As they pulled the never-returned rental up onto the driveway of Sarah's safe house, it became even more obvious that this was not a holiday house; the front garden had been meticulously maintained (Sarah found gardening therapeutic), and as they entered the house Ellie and Awesome could see the Bartowski/Walker influence that had been exerted on the property. In one room, there was Chuck's usual computer setup, with a couple of games consoles and piles of games and DVDs a couple of feet tall. In another room, just next to it, a home gym had been set up, which was obviously Sarah's, although she had attempted to teach Chuck some basic combat skills, even though Sarah would prefer it for Chuck to just run anyway if they were caught. After the two rooms in which the two inhabitants had obviously shown their differences in personality came a living room which didn't show too much in the way of personal possessions. Sarah, despite her wish to create a normal home with Chuck, had let her agent side shine through when it came to decorating the rooms visible from the street. Therefore there were few photographs which showed Chuck and Sarah, and if someone were to look in from the street and see the room, it could be assumed that the house was only inhabited sporadically; such was the effect Sarah had tried to put into the room. Of course, this lead to a couple of awkward questions from Awesome about the lack of 'couple's decor', as he had put it, but they were successfully deflected and any suspicion was generally avoided. Until of course, Awesome asked the question they had been hoping to avoid.

"So, why does this house look like you've lived here for a while?"

"Err, um, well, you see..." said Chuck, searching for an acceptable answer when, as usual, Sarah rescued him.

"It's my parent's holiday home. They let us borrow it for a couple of weeks and there's normally a couple who live here, but I've stayed here a few times in the past and me and Chuck spent Christmas with my parents here."

"Why are you in Florida, in February?" asked Devon.

"We just had to get out of New York for a while. It's nice and all, but sometimes you need to find somewhere a little quieter to unwind," answered Sarah.

"So you picked Daytona on the weekend of the 500?"

"Like I said earlier,_ someone_ forgot to check what was going on while we were here, but we might as well make the best of it. I assume you have tickets for the race?"

"Yeah, Ellie got us tickets as a Valentine's present, which was totally Awesome."

"I thought it might have been," said Chuck sarcastically, "err, Ellie, can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure," said Ellie, a slight tone of confusion in her voice.

They went into Chuck's computer room so that they could get some privacy to have their talk; Chuck had a feeling that Devon didn't know about the real reason for his and Sarah's abrupt departure from Los Angeles, so he wanted to give Ellie a chance to ask any questions that she may have wanted to ask about it, without Awesome's knowledge. Sarah didn't look too happy about being left to face the Awesome assault on her own; Ellie had really been the only one who could put up with his Awesomeness for any length of time, which was probably a good thing considering she was now married to him.

"So, you probably have quite a few questions for me..." began Chuck.

"A few, yeah, but I doubt you can answer many of them," answered Ellie.

"Well now Sarah and I are technically against the government, things can't get much worse on that front, so I'll answer any of your questions honestly. I promise."

"Was it dangerous? The stuff you did before you had to run, I mean."

"Sort of. I mostly just stayed in the car."

"No you didn't," said Sarah, who was just coming into the room.

"Err, Sarah? I know you're the superspy and all, but what about Awesome?"

"He's just getting something out of the car, and I had a feeling that whatever you wanted to talk to Ellie about would have something to do with your _other_ job. Guess I was right."

"Wait, what do you mean he didn't stay in the car?" asked Ellie.

"Oh we told him to, but there was something about the words 'stay in the car' which didn't penetrate his mind, although he did normally end up saving us in the end."

"Isn't what you do dangerous though?"

"I'm not going to lie to you, Ellie. What we do, sorry, used to do, was dangerous, but Casey and I were trained to be the best at what we did, and our job was to protect Chuck. Mine still is, in a way."

Chuck couldn't help but notice a tinge of sadness whenever Sarah spoke of her former career, but he also knew that she thought she had made the right choice in leaving it for him. It was obviously helping her to get it all out in the open and to be able to talk to Ellie about some of it, so he decided to give her the chance.

"Ellie, I know you wanted to talk to me about this, but I think it'll be better if Sarah explains it. Don't worry; I'll take care of Awesome while you two talk. Whatever Ellie tells you about the time when we were six is a lie, actually, don't worry about that. I'll see you in a little while, love you Sarah."

"Love you too, Chuck."

"Awww, you guys are too cute!" exclaimed Ellie.

As Chuck closed the door and moved to intercept a returning Awesome, whilst explaining how Ellie and Sarah needed some 'girl talk time', Ellie turned to Sarah with a look filled with a ton of questions, all of which Sarah hoped she could answer at least relatively truthfully.

"When you said it was dangerous, did Chuck ever get hurt?" asked Ellie.

"Not seriously. There were a couple of bruises and he did crack a rib that one time Bryce shot him-"

"Bryce shot him!?"

"He was wearing a vest; it was apparently the only option."

"How many other times has he been shot? Oh my God, has my little brother shot somebody?"

"No, he hasn't shot anyone. Actually, that's a lie, he accidentally shot someone once, a windowsill fell on his ankle and he dropped the gun."

"So that's how he broke his ankle then, I always wondered how that happened."

"That was the first time he'd ever shot a gun, actually the first time he held one he ejected the mag trying to find the safety," said Sarah with a small laugh as she recalled Chuck's complete innocence about the more unsavoury aspects of espionage.

"You actually find this stuff funny?" asked Ellie, horrified.

"Well, sort of. But that's only because of how long I was in that job. You become...desensitised to it. Chuck's helping me become more normal over time, but that job takes a lot out of you."

"That must have been horrible for you."

"Don't get me wrong, I loved serving my country, but the things you had to do sometimes...well let's just say it makes me glad I have Chuck to fix me."

**------------**

Unfortunately for Ellie and Awesome, they had to fly back to LA almost straight after the race had finished, which led to a decidedly unromantic Valentine's Day for them. They entered the apartment in a very tired mood, but Awesome was still in a slight state of shock from bumping into his brother in law and his girlfriend, _no wait, fiancée. Awesome!_

"Sure was a shock to bump into Chuck and Sarah wasn't it babe."

"Yes it was, hon," said Ellie, before a horrifying thought struck her.

_Oh no, the surveillance! Don't let him mention where they're staying, please._

"I mean, what are the odds of us being in the same town as them on the same day. Must be a one in a million type thing."

"But those happen 9 times out of 10, proven fact," said Ellie, trying to distract Awesome with a comment about his favourite author.

"You know what, I might just go to bed, it's been a long day. I'll make up the lack of romance to you as soon as I can."

"You know, we could get started on that now," said Ellie suggestively.

"Awesome!"

**------------**

As luck would have it, Casey happened to be listening in on Devon and Ellie's conversation, and despite a momentary shudder as they left no doubt as to what was going on in the bedroom, he quickly homed in on what had been said earlier.

_If they were in the same town as Bartowski and Walker, then that must be where they ran to, I can't see Walker letting them take a holiday whilst they're still on the run. She may be compromised but that doesn't turn you into an incompetent agent overnight._

He quickly called up Major Wyndham, who was staying at Castle in case a break came and they needed to move quickly, as was probably the case now. Walker would want them to leave as soon as possible once someone had appeared who could even possibly blow their cover.

"Sir, I just intercepted some conversation between Mr. And Mrs. Woodcomb; I think I know where Bartowski and Walker are hiding."

"Spill it, Captain."

"They mentioned that they ran into them in the same town they were staying in, and the Woodcombs went to the Daytona 500 race, so presumably that's where the targets are hiding themselves."

"They won't stay for long, not now their cover's been blown."

"I know sir. Do we have any agents who can check out the area, maybe investigate if anyone's seen Bartowski and Walker?"

"I think we have a team based there, I'll get back to you."

The Major hung up straight away, and Casey presumed that he was going to find out if there was a free team in Daytona. Meanwhile, Casey would do some investigative work of his own to give them some rough idea of where in Daytona the targets would be staying. He called up a record of the phone calls made by both Awesomes, and noticed that the only one made during the time period they were away was made yesterday. He got a trace on where the call was made from and it led to a house in Daytona. _Perfect_, thought Casey,_ unless this is another one of Bartowski's tricks._ Still, now they had an address to go on, and this certainly seemed to be a promising lead at least. Casey's phone rang, and he knew it would be the Major.

"Yes sir?"

"We have a free team, do you have any more information as to where the targets may be?"

"One of the Woodcombs made a call from just outside a house. I'm emailing you the address now, that would be a good starting point."

"Great job, Captain. We'll talk once the team in Daytona picks something up."

"Roger that," said Casey as he ended the call.

_We've got you now, Bartowski._

**------------**

"Happy Valentine's Day, Sarah!" said Chuck, as he handed her a box not unlike the one that had held the ring that now adorned her fourth finger. She opened the box and her breath was taken away by what it held inside.

"Chuck, it's beautiful," she gasped as she held up a silver necklace with a heart chain at the end of it.

"I remembered you mentioning something about a necklace your mum always used to wear, and from the description you gave of it, I wanted to try and give you something as close as possible to the real thing."

"Chuck, it's perfect," said Sarah, almost in tears at the sight of the wonderful man in front of her, the man who would do anything to make her happy, "when did you get time to buy this?"

"I didn't buy it. I had it specially made by a jeweller in LA while you were away. I always wanted to give you something special for when you came back, and that was the best idea I could come up with."

"But you already got me something, you do remember the ring?"

"Of course I do, but the way I see it, that was a gain for me. I managed to trick you into becoming my wife, eventually. This is all for you; I know how much you miss your mom, and while I can't bring her back to you, I hope I can make some of the best memories a little more clearer for you when you wear that necklace. Plus it looks beautiful on you, so that's a plus," added Chuck a little mischievously.

"You say anything looks beautiful on me Chuck, and I wouldn't say you'll be getting _nothing_ out of this present. I intend to give you a proper reward a little later on," said Sarah in a seductive tone.

"I like that idea; maybe I should give you gifts more often."

"I wouldn't be completely against that, although I'm not sure how you can top this one. You'll never know how happy I am to have met you."

"There aren't words for me to express that either, Sarah, and I'm sure I'll top that gift eventually, I promise I won't rest until you're as happy as I am at this point in time."

"And what makes you think that I'm not as happy as you now?"

"Because nobody in the world can be as happy as I am right now. I managed to make the most beautiful girl in the world cry with joy because of a gift I bought her, and said most beautiful girl is going to marry me. How can anyone be even close to how happy I am?"

"Because you're a pretty amazing guy too, Chuck Bartowski."

**------------**

The team that Major Wyndham had assigned to perform covert surveillance on the safe house Chuck and Sarah were currently abiding in were scattered in strategic positions all around the property. Not a single room was currently unwatched, and one agent was getting a slightly more...busy...view than he was expecting, as he reported on his next check in.

"Sir, it's definitely Bartowski and Walker, and if I may say, Bartowski is one hell of a lucky guy."

"What makes you say that, agent?"

"Well Walker's currently standing, naked, in front of him wearing an engagement ring."

"Ok, that's pretty lucky. At least he gets one more night of happiness before he goes underground, report in every 5 minutes."

"Understood, sir."

The agent went back to watching the unexpected show through his binoculars and felt almost sorry for his targets, with the way they were going to be taken away from each other, permanently this time.

**------------**

**A/N: Ok, I had to split the chapter here as it would be getting a tad long otherwise. See if you can catch the really obscure reference to my favourite author somewhere in this chapter. This is shamelessly copied from Truthseeker, but the first person to correctly tell me the name of said favourite author gets either a) a shoutout, or b) a chance to suggest a minor plot point for the next chapter. Happy reviewing!**


	6. Fighting

**A/N: This is more like Chapter 5 part 2 than Chapter 6, and it should hopefully answer the questions you had about some aspects of Chapter 5. Thanks to for the beta. Please, please, please, please review. If the points of view get confusing, then I'll explain it at the end. On with the Chapter...**

**----------**

The Fulcrum team was going through the limited surveillance they had on the apartment; any bugs actually within the house would alert Casey, and that wouldn't help their cause, so they were making do with bugs placed in the courtyard and piggybacking on the footage sent to Castle from Casey's surveillance post. From the reports given to them by their planted agent, it looked like Walker and Bartowski had dropped off the face of the planet, and it would take an extremely lucky and unlikely set of circumstances for them to be found.

"Sir, we just intercepted a communication from Captain Casey, he thinks he's found Bartowski and Walker!"

"This could be a trap, why wouldn't he be using a secure line?"

"He was, but our mole managed to plant a bug the last time he was assisting Casey with surveillance."

"And Casey didn't find it?"

"Apparently not; our mole used a bug which gave off exactly the same signature as the ones Casey uses, and it was placed with the rest of the bugs Casey plants around the apartment complex. The signal was then amplified using a transmitter which would not be picked up by a bug scanner; so we could listen in on the conversations Casey was having and he had no idea."

"Wouldn't he notice the bug being online in his usual sweeps?"

"Our mole made sure to turn on a couple more of the bugs in that stockpile, so it looked like an accidental switch on if it was discovered, but Casey rarely sweeps that area because of the potential for numerous accidental switch ons."

"Good work that man. What did the conversation include?"

"He had noticed the target's family, a brother in-law I believe, talking about a chance meeting between the sister, the brother in-law and Bartowski, who was also with Walker. Casey used the vague hints given in this conversation to figure out the location of Bartowski and he relayed them to his commanding officer."

"Has the location been confirmed?"

"We aren't sure, but the mole indicates that an order has been received from Major Wyndham for the entire team to head out to the location Casey reported. They wouldn't do that without confirmation, so presumably they have found the target."

"And where is this location?"

"Daytona, Florida. Which is perfect, I've been feeling a little pasty."

**----------**

"Chuck! Get up! We have to go!" shouted Sarah, as she started throwing clothes haphazardly into a suitcase.

"Huh? Wassgoingon?" as Chuck blearily, still on the edge of sleep.

"Someone from LA found us, so we have to assume our cover is blown. Therefore we need to leave, as quickly as we can."

"It was only Ellie, she wouldn't say anything. She knows the apartment is under surveillance."

"True, but Devon doesn't. He might have said something innocuous which Casey picked up on."

"Oh crap."

"Yes, now get dressed and get to the car while I get rid of any evidence we were here. If you hear multiple engines, start the car and get out of here, don't wait for me."

"I'm not leaving you!"

"Listen, I may be your fiancée, but I am also still responsible for your safety, so it's better for one of us to escape than neither of us."

"But I need you, how can I survive off the grid without you? How can I live without you?" Chuck was almost pleading with her now.

"I don't know, but if that's the only option, I want you to promise me that you'll do it," said Sarah.

"No, how can you make me promise that? If we're going to die then we're going to die together."

"Please, Chuck. Just promise me that you'll try to escape if I get caught," now it was Sarah's turn to plead with Chuck.

_Damn, how can I say no to her when she looks that vulnerable? _

"Okay, fine. But let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Chuck began to make his way to the car, but as he did so, he heard a load of cars pulling up just outside the house.

_Oh, not good, not good, not good. I've gotta warn Sarah!_

Sarah had also heard the engines, but knew that they were too close for them to get outside and into the car before someone saw them, and if they were spotted it would be game over for one or both of them. She sprinted downstairs, pistol in hand, to see Chuck looking out of the window like a deer in the headlights.

"Chuck!" she hissed, "get over here right now!"

Chuck tore his gaze away from the multitude of agents currently pouring out of a mix of SUVs and Crown Victorias. There appeared to be police squad cars blocking off the ends of the street and also SWAT teams were standing by the vehicles, apparently working out a plan to storm the house. Chuck had never been so scared in his life, not even when he was being dangled off buildings or held at gunpoint. No, now it was what he had previously thought to be the 'good guys' who were planning a method of capturing him and tearing him away from Sarah, again. He knew he'd probably be going to the bunker if he was caught, but that wasn't scaring him nearly as much as the thought of what might happen to Sarah if she was caught. He looked up at Sarah, who was standing on the stairs, about halfway up the flight, and saw in her eyes that she was almost as scared as he was. Anybody else probably wouldn't have noticed, but he had made a study of learning those eyes; the way they pierced him when she was angry with him, the sheer vulnerability when she let him behind those carefully crafted walls and the way they sparkled when she was happy. Those were his favourite versions of Sarah's eyes. Now however, her eyes were wide, and the pistol held in her hand betrayed her fear as a shake occasionally broke through her agent trained control. It was an honour but also terrible that he could affect Sarah in that way; Chuck didn't like having that much control over anybody, but he couldn't help but be grateful that Sarah had let him in further than she had ever come close to letting anybody else in before, not even Bryce had seen the emotion-filled woman beneath the agent's shell. He was shaken from his reverie when he remembered something Sarah had mentioned, and he quickly moved to be at her side on the stairs.

"What do we do?" asked Chuck in a panic.

"_I_ will wait on the landing and cover the stairs; that'll stop them coming up from behind if they go through the back door too, which is likely. _You_ will wait in the bedroom."

"Great, stay in the bedroom, Chuck..." muttered Chuck.

"Chuck, this is important. Don't leave the bedroom under any circumstances until I come and get you. I _will _come and get you. Don't forget that. I love you."

Just as Chuck departed to the bedroom, he responded with "I love you too," before he shut the door and decided to find a bulletproof vest. He hoped Sarah had one on too. She seemed to have cleaned out the ammo stashes, so whoever was coming up the stairs was going to get multiple bullet shaped perforations. He had faith in Sarah;she always came back, even when it looked hopeless.

Sarah was on the landing, just to the side of the staircase, as her training told her. She considered moving elsewhere, as the other agents' training would also say that she was hiding here, but there were no other realistic options. She had set up a quick booby trap at the bottom of the stairs which would certainly delay the agents, but it wouldn't do that much good, going by the amount of agents waiting outside the house. She crouched down, trying to keep the blood flow going in her legs in case she got a chance to break for it, mags strewn around her to enable quick reloads as she waited for the inevitable onslaught.

**----------**

Casey was again driving the lead vehicle, as he had in the failed raid on the house in LA a couple of months beforehand. This time they had confirmation of the two targets being in residence, so the force heading towards the location was a lot larger than the one that had stormed the house in LA; they had enlisted the assistance of the Daytona police force, including a fully armed SWAT team and a chopper. Bartowski wasn't going to get away this time, not now they had a positive identification on him and a veritable small army converging on the location. Walker would know that they were coming, and if she hadn't got them out of town by now, they wouldn't be leaving. As before, cars blocked off each end of the street, giving a large space to plan the operation in. Agents were sent to guard the back garden, and also to wait by the back door for when the order to move in came. More cars parked at the sides of the house so agents could narrow down the possibility of Walker waiting in a side room to ambush them. The layout of the house meant that more agents had to be committed to this part than before, but the greater numbers allowed them to do this without reducing the numbers of storming agents. Casey and Wyndham were waiting outside the house, planning this as though they were about to take down a group of Baader-Meinhof terrorists that had captured a high-ranking businessman in a castle in Austria, right down to the agents in camo-suits that had snuck onto the front lawn to burst through the living room windows. An agent was reporting the statuses of the teams surrounding the house.

"Sir, the teams at the back of the house are in position: four agents, two at the back door, two guarding the back garden to eliminate any escape attempts."

"Good, what is the cover like in their position?"

The agent waited for a response on his radio before relaying it to Casey.

"Sir, they say that there is not much cover which still gives a clear LOS to the house, what do you recommend?"

"Tell them to go low onto the ground, if Walker tries to escape that'll be where most of the bullets are heading."

"Yes sir," said the agent as he repeated what Casey had told him.

"What are the statuses of the agents breaching in the front windows?" asked Major Wyndham.

"They have reached their target area, sir, reporting no movement inside."

"And the side entrances?"

"Again, no movement reported. Walker is probably waiting upstairs for us, Sir; it's what any trained agent would do."

"And that's precisely why we will be thorough; she will know that we know that, and she may attempt to surprise us."

"Yes sir. Shall we send in the SWAT team?"

"Not yet, I want eyes on the main hallway of the house, get a snake cam under the door, Walker may have booby trapped the entrance."

"Yes sir," said the agent coordinating the SWAT team, "Michaels, get a snake cam under the door!"

"Yes sir!" came the answer from a technician holding a laptop, and he moved stealthily up to the door, and fed a small, fibre-optic cable underneath it, while a video feed crackled to life on the laptop screen. Rotating the cable slightly so he could see the entire of the entrance hall, he performed a quick visual check on whether there were any traps, before running a thermal scan which also showed no traps. Satisfied of the safety to move him, he returned to the line of vehicles and reported these findings.

"Okay, it looks clear, but I want to you to still be careful," said Wyndham to the assembled SWAT team, who were checking their weapons one last time, "Walker is a dangerous individual, if you see her, shoot first. Our target is Bartowski, he is a high priority asset of our government and he must be captured alive. Walker is dedicated to this guy and will do her best to keep him from you. If necessary, shoot Bartowski but make it non lethal. We think that Walker will be using a standard issue pistol but she may have a lot of ammunition for said pistol. Bartowski is likely to be unarmed but wearing a vest. Walker will also likely be wearing a vest, so shoot for the head. You are cleared to move in at will, go go go."

The team moved quickly and silently to the door, and with the Major's word in mind, plus the knowledge that Walker knew that they were coming, they placed a shaped charge on the door, instead of shooting out the lock, as was normal for stealthy entries. The charge was shaped so that most of the blast would be focused on the door; this would allow a much smaller piece of explosive to open the door. The leader of the SWAT team opened up his radio to all of the channels being used by the team that would assault the house.

"On my mark, move into the house. 3, 2, 1, mark!"

The front and back doors of the house blew open and SWAT members and agents poured in, guns pointed into the dust left by the explosion...

**----------**

Fulcrum had gathered as many men as they could to follow Major Wyndham's team to Daytona as quickly as possible. This would likely be their best opportunity to capture the Intersect; if he escaped, then he and Walker would assume new identities and never be heard from again. If the NSA force captured him, then he would be in a secure bunker even Fulcrum couldn't penetrate. For all intents and purposes, this was their last chance.

Of course, before they could get that far, they had to get past the roadblocks. Once the team had landed in Daytona, the rental station had experienced a huge upturn in car rentals so the team could transport themselves to the appropriate location. Now they were there the team could see the markings of the Daytona police force squad cars blocking off the end of the street. The commander had split the Fulcrum force in two to allow a pincer movement on the NSA force from both ends of the street.

There were snipers positioned on the houses which faced the street; they had infiltrated the gardens and climbed the houses without the inhabitants becoming aware of their presence, and know the Fulcrum team could take out the police officers currently blocking the road quickly and simply, while the bulk of the force waited around the corner, preparing to ram their cars into the roadblock and hopefully break it up, while others were on foot, waiting to move in and use the police cars as cover. The plan was to take out the police officers, send in the foot agents to cover the team from behind the police cars and then to break up the roadblock with the rest of the team which were in cars. This would occur simultaneously at both ends of the street, and once the NSA force outside of the house was dealt with the Fulcrum team would storm the house and secure the Intersect. Simple plans, but they tend to go wrong once they come into contact with the enemy. Suddenly, the order came in from the commander to put the plan into action, and all hell broke loose.

The snipers took out the four officers waiting by their cars with two shots each, both to the head. This was followed, as planned, by two agents sprinting from the corners on each side of the street to take up positions by the police cars. It was at this point the NSA force realised something was amiss, and even as the SWAT team forced their way into the house, the attention of the agents standing outside was drawn to both ends of the street. Casey and Wyndham both yelled orders, and there was suddenly a line of vehicles facing both ends of the street, with agents crouched behind them, weapons pointed at the police cars at either end of the street.

Bullets began to fly between each side, but the main aim of the Fulcrum agents was merely to keep the NSA heads down while their cars forced their way down the street. They weren't even aiming, just holding their guns above the cars and firing in the general direction of the NSA agents. The NSA agents knew that this was probably just covering fire, but Casey and Wyndham ordered them to remain behind cover and not waste their ammo on shooting at cars. The teams within the house were still progressing through their pre-planned mission, oblivious to the fight going on outside.

As the first cars began their run at the roadblock, the rate of fire from the covering Fulcrum agents increased, and they stuck their heads above the vehicles providing them with cover, to aim better at the hiding NSA agents. There was unfortunately a line of vehicles in between the two lines of NSA agents which meant they couldn't get a shot on the opposite sides that were uncovered by their vehicles.

It only took one strategically placed car to break through the hastily arranged roadblock, which led to a sudden influx of Fulcrum laden cars into what had become a no-man's land between the roadblock and the line of NSA agents. This was when Casey and Wyndham gave the order to open fire, and there was suddenly a barrage of bullets unleashed upon the vehicles. The windscreens weren't reinforced, which led to a couple of unlucky drivers taking a shot to the body, as while their passengers ducked for cover, they had to watch where they were driving, and some were suddenly very thankful for their vests. One, however, was not as lucky as a bullet found its way into his brain. This caused his car to spin wildly, and his passengers dived out and hid behind it, while the other Fulcrum cars drove around it and continued to advance.

As was planned, the Fulcrum drivers stopped their cars around ten yards from the NSA vehicles, and the occupants all dived out and to the relative safety behind the cars as the NSA agents continued their barrage. Soon, a style of gunfight similar to close range trench warfare developed, as neither side was prepared to lift their heads above the parapet, and they traded blindly fired bullets between one another.

**----------**

Sarah had heard two small explosions from both the front and back of the house, and knew the time would soon come for her to defend her love and her life. She could hear the calls of "Clear!" from downstairs, and waited patiently for the inevitable charge up the stairs. Sarah thought she heard a couple of loud gunshots from outside the house, but dismissed them as hopeful thinking; nobody was going to help them, it was her job and hers only to save Chuck from capture, and the calls from downstairs were beginning to diminish. Sarah could hear booted footsteps approaching the bottom of the stairs, and the agents didn't appear to notice the tripwire she had hastily set up not ten minutes before. One of them broke it, which released a cloud of dust from the ceiling; not normally a handicap but when you are storming a house and even a split second slower reaction time could cost a life, and the dust was clogging the breathing gear they were using to avoid the tear gas which was to be implemented before they attacked the stairs.

Sarah had gambled on the use of tear gas, and if the coughing below was any indication, her gamble had paid off. She didn't have any grenades, but even if she did, she wasn't willing to use them and risk causing structural damage to the house; that would put Chuck in unnecessary danger. Sarah judged that the time was right and vaulted the banister onto the staircase, spotting four SWAT agents below and almost surely several more agents in the house. Settling onto one knee she squeezed off a couple of rounds into the nearest foe's legs, which were the only unguarded spot on his body that she could see from this position. As he fell to his knees, human instinct forced him to look up at his assailant, and the moment he did he took a bullet to the face. Three left. The next one dropped as he looked at his fallen comrade and exposed his neck, which was almost immediately perforated by a 9mm bullet. Two to go. Before she could take out the rest she could hear other agents converging on her position, so she sprinted backwards back up the stairs, firing the occasional shot and returning to her defensive position on the landing.

The use of tear gas had been knocked out due to the breathing equipment's destruction from the dust, so the SWAT leader called for the rest of the agents to move to the stairs. Walker seemed to hear them coming, and she started to move back up the stairs, firing off some shots into the group of SWAT members, down to the leader and his second in command, obviously hoping for a lucky shot. To minimise that possibility the leader moved his last remaining squad mate back to the hallway, out of sight of the stairs, to come up with a new plan, just as the other agents began to arrive.

"What happened?" asked one of the agents, spying the two bodies at the foot of the stairs.

"Walker had a trap set, and attacked us while we were distracted. Do we have any flashbangs?"

"Yes sir, on last count we have two between all of us."

"That'll do. Here's the plan: Walker will be on the landing, so flashbang the top of the stairs and lob one straight up from the bottom. While she's distracted me and Richardson here"-indicating his one remaining SWAT team mate-"will move up and you will all follow. We will overwhelm Walker with numbers and eliminate her, then move in on Bartowski."

"Yes sir," answered the agents.

The assorted teams moved to the base of the stairs. The gunfire had stopped inside, but seemed to be very loud outside.

"What the hell is happening outside?" asked an agent.

"Not our problem, we'll finish up our mission then find out," answered the lead SWAT member.

Sarah could hear their discussion and was trying to figure out how to avoid the flashbangs, when she saw her chance. Chuck had left his ear defenders from his last target practice out on the storage unit on the landing, which would defend against the –bang- part, and she would just avert her eyes from the flash. She crawled to the ear defenders and grabbed them, stuffing them over her ears. She couldn't hear any more, but the agents seemed to be getting focused now, so anything she did hear would be useless. Sarah checked her mag, and reloaded with a full one just to be sure. She would probably only have time for one mag and no reloads before she was overwhelmed, but she was going to take as many of the agents with her as possible. There was simply nothing else she could do; there was no cover to make an elongated stand, and her only weapon was a single pistol, not even an assault rifle with which she could do more damage. No, just eight shots. She was going to make damn sure that there would be eight coffins filled after this.

"Okay, flashbangs, go!"

_Here we go, goodbye Chuck._

**----------**

Bryce had piled out of the lead Fulcrum car. As second in command, and with the commander wanting to stay out of the action, it was his job to lead the troops. Of course, this meant he could use his affiliations to his advantage. So far, he had ordered five agents to charge the NSA lines, and they had all been ripped apart within seconds. He didn't like it, but every Fulcrum agent down was one less chasing Chuck. Chuck deserved happiness, as did Sarah, even if she was with Chuck, not the one Bryce thought she should really be with. _I bet some people would agree with me, too__,_ thought Bryce, and he remembered that one time in a Coffee shop where Sarah had first agreed to let their professional relationship become somewhat less than professional. He had given up any claim to her though once he had accepted the 'rogue' mission.

There was still a stalemate between the two lines of rogue and loyal agents, and it would take something special to break it. If he wanted to continue the Fulcrum takedown, Bryce had to be somewhat competent in his command, and he had waited long enough. Time to unleash his secret weapon.

"Okay, charge on my command! I want smoke grenades over the cars, covering fire and then move up to the NSA lines."

"Yes sir!" came the cries from along the line.

"Okay...Go! Grenades out!"

Several smoke grenades were lobbed over the rented cars, and soon the air was thick with the acrid, grey smoke, and the NSA cars were obscured from view completely. It was now time for the final stage of the assault to begin.

"Covering fire!"

Every alternate agent stood up and began pouring fire in the vague direction of the NSA lines, pinning the agents behind their vehicles. They knew what was coming but were powerless to stop it.

"Charge them!" shouted Bryce, vaulting over the bonnet of his own car, as the agents followed him across the short distance to the NSA lines. Once they reached them, Bryce once again hunkered down behind the vehicle, only feet away from the NSA agents who must surely have known where they were. On the other side of the street, a similar operation had taken place, and now smoke was drifting thickly throughout the street while the pincer closed on the NSA agents who were trapped between two malicious engines of war, all eager to rain fire down on them.

The next phase of the operation was to flashbang the inside of the car ring and storm it, much like what was going on within the house, only outside it would take more flashbangs for the same effect. Bryce now utilised a form of sign language propagated by several Special Forces teams across the world. He couldn't risk words at this distance; the key to flashbangs lay in the surprise. With a wave of his arm, the order to throw was given.

As the grenades flew over the vehicles, Casey was one of the few to notice them. He dragged the closest agent to him to the ground, and covered his face, while the agent did the same, knowing what was coming. The grenades detonated, several bright flashes all along the line, and again, the same was occurring all along the other side. Suddenly, the cars were filled with Fulcrum agents, and they moved over the bonnets and through the vehicles quickly, while the NSA agents were stunned.

Casey popped his head up and drew his pistol, sighting on the nearest Fulcrum agent and firing. He dropped to the ground within the circle quickly, shocking many other NSA agents into action. Suddenly there was more desperate gunfire all along the line as they fought for their lives against the Fulcrum agents.

Bryce was one of the first agents over, leading by example as he usually did. He tried to avoid firing directly at any NSA agents unless they were shooting at him. Instead, he was knocking many of them unconscious, moving quickly through the line as the other Fulcrum agents were rebuffed by the elite NSA agents. Suddenly he felt a searing pain at his side, and he slumped against the wall of a nearby car, feeling the hot blood flow out of him. _Must have hit an artery_, thought Bryce as he searched for the man who would probably be his killer. He saw a gun pointed at him, and the face behind it was strangely familiar. _Casey, figures. I guess third time is a charm_, thought Bryce sardonically, and he saw the recognition fly through Casey's eyes as their eyes met. Even his vest couldn't stop the bullet at that range, as it hit his side, where it was thinnest. Even if they could get him to surgery his career would be over, as Kevlar fibres would be clinging to his ribs, and inhibiting his breathing. It was appropriate that Bryce's last thought was of his career. It was what had caused him to lose his best friend, and he had met the greatest woman he had ever known, but then his career had taken him away from her. Now it would do for the final time. There were no Fulcrum paramedics waiting this time, no European cryogenic clinics. Just Bryce and the end, he wondered what came next, would he see a light? Or would he just go, slipping into a deep sleep which he would not awaken from this time. All he hoped for was that he would be going up, rather than down, but his career had made that choice for him. Then, as before, Bryce Larkin died with Casey standing over him, a gun pointed between his eyes, and dark blood staining the ground beneath him.

**----------**

Sarah closed her eyes and waited for the explosion, at which point she would open them and rain unholy hell on anyone who came up the stairs. There was the explosion, and her eyes opened, her pistol flew up in her hand and pointed at the stairs, but nobody followed the explosion.

_What the hell? _

She didn't want to give up her defensive position if the agents were merely waiting below, but there was suddenly the roar of an automatic rifle from just inside the now destroyed front door. Sarah silently thanked whatever happened to be listening and ran to the bedroom. She burst open the door and was met with one of her own pistols pointed at her. Chuck visibly deflated in relief at the sight of Sarah, and ran to her and kissed her passionately before Sarah pushed him away.

At Chuck's look Sarah took on a sympathetic tone, "I'm sorry Chuck, but we haven't escaped yet. There are some enemy agents fighting with the NSA outside, so now's our chance to run. We can't use the front door and this bedroom faces to the back, so we're going out the window. Follow me once I go, Okay?"

"Got it."

"Good, now wait while I clear the back, there will almost certainly be some agents outside."

Sarah looked out of the window and saw two agents crouched on the lawn, guns trained on the back door. With two expertly placed shots both agents keeled over to the floor. Hoping that the agents in the house were distracted by the enemy, she leapt from the first floor window and rolled onto the grass, coming up into a firing position which covered both the house and the alley to the side of the house.

Chuck followed somewhat less gracefully, but he rolled well and avoided any serious injury. Sarah shushed him and ran to the corner of the house, looking out and seeing the carnage on the street ahead of them. It appeared the team from inside the house had addressed the balance somewhat, which led to the only option being to go through the back gardens of neighbouring houses.

"Chuck," whispered Sarah, "we're gonna climb over those fences until we reach the end of the street, then move down a couple of houses and steal a car. Florida isn't safe anymore."

"I got it," said Chuck fearfully. Despite his minimal training, he wasn't relishing trying to keep up with Sarah, but he'd try.

Sarah quickly vaulted the nearest fence like a cat, and Chuck followed in a rather ungainly fashion, but it was effective in its own way. They moved further and further away from the gunshots when a bullet struck the earth right next to Sarah. She dove at Chuck and forced him against the wall.

"There's a sniper on the roof of a house at the end of the street. I'm gonna cover you so you can get past this fence, once you're over it you should be clear."

"What about you?"

"I'll manage;I'm faster than you so I can get over the fence quickly. I'm not leaving you now."

Sarah ordered him to go and spun out from behind the wall, firing a couple of shots at the roof where she had spotted the sniper. A bullet pinged into the fence next to Chuck, but soon he was over and hidden from the sniper. Then it was Sarah's turn. She sprinted for the fence and vaulted it, the sniper shots following close behind, and one shot splintered the fence below her, driving shards into her leg, but it wasn't too bad. They were now clear and the job was to find a suitable car to steal, which they found four houses down; a nondescript Mercedes which looked like it could go fairly quickly if the need arose. Sarah jimmied the lock and dove into the driver's side, while Chuck entered the passenger door.

"So, where are we headed?" asked Chuck.

"We're going back to California."

**----------**

**A/N: Apologies to Wep, it was getting too long to put in your prize for winning the previous competition. It will be in the next chapter however. Sorry Coffee, but you lost and couldn't save Bryce.**

**Next competition is another obscure reference, but I'll make it easier on you. Which Tom Clancy novel is referenced in this chapter?**


	7. Thinking

**A/N: Consider this as chapter 5 part 3, but we're also coming up to the end of this story. Don't worry; there is a sequel to this sequel planned at some point. Still plenty to happen in these next couple of chapters anyway. Thanks to Sm93Starbuck for the beta of the last chapter, as I forgot to put it in the A/N of that one, sorry about the Bryce thing lol. This was meant to be a very Charahy chapter, but I was over a thousand words into a Casey introspective before I even knew it, so the Charah will have to wait (Never thought I'd say that). A warning, this might be a little graphic for some people.**

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far, wouldn't mind getting a few more though, they give us writers the motivation to continue, thanks to Wep for the comments, and thanks for the beta too, you really are super duper fandabuolously awesome. Let's get on with the chapter then...**

**---------**

As the smoke began to clear over the street just outside Chuck and Sarah's former safe house in the city of Daytona, Florida, the damage that had been done could be seen more clearly. The front of the house was a mess of bullet holes and broken glass, the result of a haphazard retreat by the Fulcrum agents who were trying to find a hostage to give them enough leverage to escape. Their initial attack over the line of the NSA vehicles had been a relative success, but the arrival of the SWAT team from inside the house had shifted the balance once again back to the NSA team, and they had forced the Fulcrum squad back into the house. After that, a stalemate had been reached; no NSA agent could get within ten yards of the house without being shot at, and no Fulcrum agent could leave the house without becoming riddled with more holes than Swiss cheese.

This stalemate had held, with Fulcrum inside the house and NSA hiding once more behind their vehicles, until the local police force had sent along some more officers to aid the task force. With these extra numbers, the NSA force had managed to completely surround the house, and the Fulcrum agents, knowing their game was up, decided to surrender instead of trying to shoot it out. All of the NSA agents had breathed a collective sigh of relief as the first agents came out with their hands above their heads, as did the extremely terrified residents of the street which had been transformed into a warzone. Casey oversaw the capture of the agents, making sure each and every one was herded into a police vehicle and looked after by at least two agents along with an officer. Fulcrum had known about the raid, which meant Fulcrum had a mole within the team and possibly surveillance on his apartment, which Casey didn't even want to contemplate; he was the NSA's counter-surveillance master, yet he hadn't picked up on a bug within his very apartment? Not something he was looking forward to reporting.

The next task was to get a cleanup started on the street, which currently looked like it would be more in place somewhere like Baghdad rather than a quiet side-street in a suburb of a Florida city. The blood had all but flowed into the drains which littered the sides of the road, just like any other road in any other American town, but what were left were the results of the close range impacts of high-calibre weapons. The occasional arm, maybe a finger left lying on the street, its owner lying a few yards away. All of these were a sight seen too often by Captain John Casey: his friends, his partners, lying there in their own blood and guts, eyes fixed and glazed as they stared into oblivion, some with wide-eyed looks of terror etched upon their faces, while others had the cold, hard look of acceptance as their death mask.

Whatever their final thoughts were, the faces haunted Casey every night, as they did for any other federal agent or soldier, who dealt with death on an almost daily basis. He was glad that fragmentation grenades hadn't been utilised in this particular fight; the nightmares of seeing squad mates being thrown high into the air (_well, parts of my squad mates_, thought Casey) were not ones he wanted to see repeated in his waking vision. He'd heard the screams of dying warriors, watched wives and mothers collapse as he delivered the letters of condolence (it was the least he could do; he'd want his mother to be told of his death by a friend, given the choice), and try as he might, he couldn't block them out forever.

Casey knew he was a burnout; his career was done after he found Bartowski. Casey wasn't even sure if he could put a bullet in him or Walker given the opportunity; they were the closest he'd had to friends for years, and Casey didn't think even his walled-up, stony mind could take the image of another screaming death. Even if he made it quick he doubted he'd be able to pull the trigger, a sniper rifle as they sat together at the beach and discussed their future seemed too personal, and at that range a shot to the head was too unpredictable, so he'd have to watch as they lay together and said their goodbyes to one another as only lovers can. Knowing the way they cared for each other Casey wouldn't have the stomach to do it, and if they had by some miracle had children, even Casey's heart of stone wouldn't be able to take orphaning a child. No, he was done. No more killing, from now on his only targets would be cardboard at the end of a shooting range. The sight of carnage currently in front of his eyes on the street had broken the fragile strings which kept him detached from what his occupation had entailed. No matter what anyone said, serving in a war and ending numerous lives took its toll, even on a trained agent and soldier.

His wandering eyes found what they were looking for. There, slumped up against the bullet riddled shell of a police cruiser, lay the body of Bryce Larkin. It was almost symbolic of Casey's thoughts. He had felt guilt over the death of his squad mates when he accidentally walked them into an ambush in Afghanistan in '02, felt the sorrow emanating from each church as he went to the funerals of his fallen comrades, and now it had come almost entirely full circle; he had directly caused the death of someone he wouldn't quite consider a friend, but certainly a comrade worthy of respect. Casey looked down at Bryce's lifeless eyes, and wondered just what his last thought had been. It certainly made everything hit home, when someone you worked with succumbed to the dangers of their job. It made Casey even surer of his decision to leave this job at the end of his current assignment. He was confident that he had built up enough credit to earn a teaching place somewhere in the NSA. Sure, Casey had devoted his life to the American Dream, but it was never for his own benefit. He did his job so that others could have it, and it would be _his_ dream to enable the next generation to secure the next generation's American Dream.

He walked next to Bryce's body, and as respectfully as possible picked him up, slinging him across his shoulders. This drew a couple of strange looks from the agents who were watching on and attempting to begin the cleanup operation.

"Sir, what are you doing? He's a traitor, put his body with the rest of them; they don't deserve our respect."

"What's your name, agent?" asked Casey

"Lieutenant Reynolds, sir."

"Well if I have anything to do with it that bar will be gold by the end of the week. Now, this man is far braver than any of you. He risked his life to try and take down Fulcrum, and gave his life in the process, and you belittle his sacrifice like that? You wouldn't survive five minutes on an assignment like that!"

With that, Casey stormed off. He wasn't sure where that outburst had come from; he didn't even like Bryce. Every time he came back he had screwed with the team dynamic and messed Walker up so badly she needed a couple of days to sort her emotions out. Then there was Bartowski's jealous whimpering as if he was afraid Walker would leave him. As if she could for any length of time, any idiot could see how far gone she was. _Except the important idiot,_ thought Casey. At least Bartowski should be fairly sure where he stood now, but they'd be long gone now. Casey doubted they'd have another chance to retrieve the asset; Walker would make sure there was no chance of another meeting, and if there was, she certainly wouldn't hang around after. That was the thing with being an agent; you mess up once, and if you survive the fallout from it, you certainly learn from it.

Casey was comforted by the knowledge that he and his team had struck a blow against Fulcrum here that they would probably never recover from, but at what cost? He surveyed the carnage surrounding him, the occasional charred wreck of a car where a lucky shot had caused an explosion; bits of charred human scattered in the immediate vicinity, so burned you couldn't tell whether it was friend or foe. He looked past that horrific sight and saw Agent Forrest lying in a pool of her blood, Fulcrum agents piled around her as she had obviously tried to fight them off.

**---------**

_Forrest was in the line of agents that were staring out at the fast approaching cars, which obviously contained Fulcrum agents who had been tipped off as to who the Intersect was and where he was. Casey was crouched a few feet to her left, in radio contact with Major Wyndham, who was in much the same predicament as they were. Forrest had luckily decided to bring along a few big guns instead of just a pistol and her decision appeared to be vindicated by the large swarm of cars heading for their position. Suddenly Casey sprang up, pistols in both hands, and gave the order to fire. Then all hell broke loose._

_Then Forrest was up, and NSA agents all along the line and behind her were doing the same, unloading round after round into the Fulcrum cars that were approaching them. Forrest's M16A2 was ripping into the bonnet of the vehicle just to the right of the lead. She knew that in all likelihood the occupants would be wearing vests, and a head shot at this range would be a complete fluke, so she concentrated on the engine, trying to either slow the car down or completely destroy it. The volume of fire she was laying down was causing the occupants of the car to duck down below whatever they could find, but the driver stayed upright, providing the perfect target. She stopped firing at the bonnet, leaving smoke trailing out of the numerous holes, and sighted on the exposed face of the driver. A head shot on a moving target was one of the most difficult shots to pull off, but Forrest hadn't devoted herself to perfecting her firearms skills for nothing. In fact, she could probably rival most Special Forces operatives for accuracy and rate of fire, so this shot was nothing. A quick burst of fire into the midriff caused an instinctive tightening of the arms of the driver, so he couldn't quickly change direction. With his head locked in her sights, she unloaded the rest of the clip at him, causing a satisfying red cloud to erupt from the Fulcrum traitor's skull. Most people would be disgusted by this, but Forrest reasoned, why should she be upset with giving someone just what they deserved? Traitors didn't deserve to live in her opinion; she was just skipping the middleman and giving his passengers something else to worry about._

_Forrest turned her attention to another car, she could see others spinning out of control much as her target had, but her clip soon ran dry, and rather than waste valuable time that they simply didn't have on reloading, Forrest simply switched to the MAC-11 she'd had since she'd completed training. It was the first gun other than a pistol Forrest had ever owned, so it certainly wouldn't be cast away like the M16 had recently been. Its rate of fire was much higher than the M16, but at long range it was about as useful as a BB gun. She hunkered down below the line of the car and waited for the Fulcrum vehicles to stop, ; then they'd find out the real meaning of pain. The weight of the machine pistol in her hand seemed about right, and the sounds of gunfire echoing around her sounded completely natural. _This is what I want to be a part of for the rest of my life_, thought Forrest._

_The sounds of screeching tires filled the air around Forrest, and she knew the serious gunfire would soon be starting. A quick look over the top of the cars showed that they would soon be engaged in a small scale recreation of Passchendaele or Ypres. Just what they needed. If the team inside the house managed to secure the target then they would walk out into the mother of all gunfights, and if by some miracle Walker managed to fight them off, then they could end up losing the Intersect to Fulcrum. Neither option was particularly appealing, which left only two options; run and retreat into the house now, or stay and fight it out. Either way, there would be carnage pretty soon. She had to duck down fairly quickly as bullets whizzed overhead, but the quick recon had given her a rough idea in her head where the enemy would be; which gave her a split second advantage if she needed it._

_Of course, she struggled to find any opening to be able to use that advantage. An agent just to the left of her lifted his head above the car and quickly lost it in a hail of gunfire. That put paid to any lofty ambitions involving a head-on attack on the Fulcrum positions. She could hear the Fulcrum agents planning a frontal assault, was expecting the sudden increase in fire heading their way, and could also judge the time when the gunfire would stop in order to clear the way for the attack. Not even commanders were stupid enough to shoot their own men. No, it was far more sporting to let the enemy do it. The gunfire stopped, and Forrest was on her feet, watching for the first sign of movement. There, just to the right of her. She spun and fired a burst in the vague direction of the movement, and hit the first two agents to cross into the makeshift no-man's land. The agents around Forrest noticed the lack of gunfire, and also stood up and joined in with the firing, keeping the Fulcrum agents pinned while Forrest dealt with the half-hearted assault. After five agents were cut down before they had so much as cleared the barrier of cars, the encroachments stopped, and Forrest once more dropped below the car line, going back to the status quo of the fire fight thus far._

_This continued for a couple of minutes before Forrest heard the telltale clinking of metal hitting the road, followed by a small bang and a plume of thick, black smoke. Knowing what was likely to follow, Forrest made sure to reload her M16 and MAC-11; she would need every shot to count if what she suspected was about to happen did indeed take place. She had just finished with the reloading when she heard the unmistakeable pounding of boots running towards their position, followed by a metallic clunk as a canister landed just in front of her while she was leaning with her back to the car. Knowing just what that was Forrest buried her face into her arms and tried to brace herself for the noise. It came and was louder than her training had ever prepared her for, momentarily disorientating Forrest, but the high quality of her training let her recover just as a heavy boot fell beside her. _

_The MAC came up in her hand and without looking, without aiming; she pointed the gun upwards and pulled the trigger. The agent stumbled, before his brain caught up with the fact he was dead, and fell sideways, the momentum from the rounds forcing him down to his left and on to the agent beside Forrest. The agent shoved the unfortunate attacker off himself and looked up just in time to see a gun barrel pointed directly at him. His last thought was only, _Oh sh-,_ before there was a blinding flash of light and everything went black._

_Forrest could see that things were not going well, an agent was moving like a shadow along the line, but instead of doing what any trained killer of a traitor would do and slitting the unsuspecting agent's throats, he was merely knocking them out with the butt of his pistol. That was, until he turned to see Casey pointing a pistol at him. There was another shot, surprisingly loud over all of the shots erupting around them, and the unknown agent slumped against the side of a car. Forrest paid for this momentary distraction, as a pair of Fulcrum agents sprang over the vehicles directly behind her. She managed to bring up both weapons in her hands and fire them simultaneously, but as the agents slumped forwards, blood pouring from the results of the bullets, her arms were pinned below the two of them, leaving her torso open to the next agent to attack. Desperately pulling at her arms, trying to free them, she managed to work one out from below the dead agent and drew her pistol. The next agent to jump over the line of cars was met with the 9mm rounds flying at his head. He also fell, covering her legs. Now she was truly screwed, Forrest couldn't move, and she was out of ammo. All she could hope for was some sort of miracle saviour before more enemy agents reached her. Her prayers seemed to be answered as Forrest could hear the sounds of automatic weapons discharging in the distance. But no, another Fulcrum agent dropped down in front of her, trying to find cover from the newest attack. His eyes widened as he saw Forrest, and without hesitation he aimed and fired into her stomach. _Oh that's just cruel_, thought Forrest. She knew nobody would find her before the stomach acid ate into her various organs and slowly killed her, but she was determined to get some measure of revenge. With slowly weakening limbs, she pulled a knife free from its holster and stabbed upwards, finding the Fulcrum agent's throat, and he sank to the ground on top of her, small gurgling noises bubbling from his mouth._

Here comes the light,_ thought Forrest grimly._

**---------**

Casey felt another surge of sadness for his partner. It helped to know she had died doing what she loved, but it was another reminder of just how big the sacrifices the government asked of its agents were. That was two individuals he had known today who he had seen lying in their own blood, and it hit Casey harder than any other death had before. A few years ago, Casey would have brushed it off, calling it a simple fact of life, that death was the only certainty, but now, it just served as another reminder of how his life had been turned into a husk. Bartowski was good for something then, apparently; he could take the most burned out, wrecks of an agent and transform them into a somewhat functioning human once again.

_I don't think I'd have been able to shoot you anyway, Bartowski. Damn you!_

**---------**

**A/N: I guess I'll have to apologise to Wep again, but your plot point **_**will**_** find its way in eventually. The next chapter will be more or less the originally planned chapter 6, so reeeeaaallllly I haven't messed up my promise yet lol.**

**More questions for your consideration:**

**1) Which two fanfic authors were referenced here?**

**2) Which British comedy series was also referenced? The clue is here; Mr. Bean, House M.D. and QI.**

**Read and review. Merci people.**


	8. Refueling

**A/N: Now, this is probably the penultimate chapter, unless things get a bit out of hand again and I have to split what should have been one chapter into three. Anyhoo, thanks to everyone who has reviewed thus far, they really provide the motivation to continue (Plus it's nice waking up to find a ton of relevant emails in your inbox). Thanks to Wepdiggy and Yokaputo for the betas, both of you are ridiculously Awesome (yes, even capitalised awesome). On with the chapter then...**

**--------------**

The Mercedes recently liberated by Chuck and Sarah would not serve much of a purpose as a getaway vehicle. The owners would have reported it stolen, and once Casey learned of the proximity of said owner's residence to the location of Chuck and Sarah's former safe house, he would be sure of who had stolen the vehicle. Therefore, the plan was for Sarah to find another rental station where they could use the backup identities Sarah had acquired-just in case of a need to abandon their previous ones- and find a suitable car for driving once again across the country.

Her training had paid off again. Once Casey had found their safe house Sarah could be sure they had left something behind which indicated their new identities, as there hadn't been time to collect up every shred of personal information before the hasty exit that had been made from the upper window of the house.

Sarah knew that they would probably have to change their appearance fairly soon; their photos would be made known to every police force in the country as quickly as possible by Casey, and it wouldn't be safe for them to continue looking like they did now. It probably wouldn't be safe for long anyway, and Sarah was starting to give serious thought to constructing a plan to get out of the country.

Chuck was sitting next to Sarah in the Mercedes with an extremely panicked look on his face. His eyes were wide and he seemed to be almost in a state of shock, as he just stared straight ahead and his mouth moved silently. Sarah was a little worried by this; normally the adrenaline of escaping a near death situation led to an exuberant Chuck who had trouble shutting up, but this new reaction to what could have been the end of them was troubling.

Maybe it was just the fact that it was people Chuck had once considered the 'good guys' trying to kill them, or maybe it was that they had been attacked in a place that Chuck had considered as home for the past couple of months. Whatever it was, Sarah was concerned for Chuck's mental state; he had to be fairly alert once they made it to the rental station, as she couldn't watch for all of the threats herself, and Casey was sure to have placed guards on the possible ways to acquire transport to exit the town.

"Chuck, talk to me, what's wrong?" asked Sarah.

"Huh? What?" responded Chuck, startled.

"You haven't said a word since we left the house. Normally I can't shut you up after a life or death situation, so something's freaked you out. Come on, Chuck, you can talk to me."

"I know, it's just...I knew Casey was going to try and kill us, but it's a bit of a shock that he came so close, I mean...if the SWAT team had stayed for a couple more seconds before going outside you wouldn't be sitting next to me."

"I know, Chuck, but don't think about that. Instead, think about the life we're going to have once we finally escape from the government. It was the only thing that kept me fighting on the stairs; the thought I wouldn't get that life with you if I gave up. I wonder what made them leave?"

"It was Fulcrum, Sarah. Fulcrum was there too."

"How do you know?"

"I flashed on one of the bodies we drove past. Seriously, did you have to go so slowly?"

"I was doing 30, Chuck. But if Fulcrum is on us too, we really have to be careful. I made a mistake in letting us stay here after Ellie found us; we should have left and it nearly got us both killed. I'm sorry Chuck," finished Sarah, focusing on the road but her eyes were shining with tears of guilt and her hands were tight against the wheel.

"Hey, hey," said Chuck soothingly, stroking Sarah's hair to try and calm her down, "I wouldn't be alive right now if it wasn't for you."

"You'd have been safe in the bunker, and I nearly killed us both," said Sarah sadly, and her shoulders were slumped as if the guilt that she was feeling was literally weighing down on her shoulders.

"That's not a life! Being away from everyone I love, I'd be a shell. I wouldn't live, I'd exist, and that's it. It nearly killed me being away from you even though I knew you'd be coming back eventually. No, you saved me Sarah, don't doubt that," said Chuck as he gripped her hand to emphasise his point.

"How do you do that?" asked Sarah, looking slightly happier.

"Do what?" responded Chuck, confused by Sarah's sudden question.

"Make me fall in love with you even more. I fought it and yet you still managed to do it. How is it that you can warm the heart of even the coldest of people?" answered Sarah.

"Well there's certainly something to be said for persistence, but you're not as cold as you think you are, Sarah. Beneath that agent exterior is a beautiful, real person, and that's who I fell in love with. You can't fight against yourself, Sarah. No matter how much they trained you," said Chuck, squeezing Sarah's hand softly.

"I love you, Chuck," said Sarah quietly.

"Love you too, Sarah."

**--------------**

The drive back to California was a fairly quiet one; Sarah had insisted on going at the speed limit to avoid an unnecessary ticket which could put them on the radar of the police, and by extension, the NSA and also Fulcrum. In a way it was good that Chuck and Sarah had found out about the fact Fulcrum was also after them as it avoided any nasty surprises like the one in the Daytona safe house, but Chuck was even more worried about Ellie now; he was confident that Casey wouldn't hurt her, but Fulcrum was an entirely different matter.

Sarah had also insisted that they throw any possible tails off their tracks, and so instead of taking the most direct route to California; through Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, she decided to drive up through Georgia and into South Carolina before heading west. They were heading up the I-95, near to the point Sarah thought they might be safe to start heading west; she really didn't want to spend too long in South Carolina if possible, as it brought back bad memories of a con her father had tried to pull. It was probably the only time they actually had to run out of town as fast as they could.

Just as they were coming up to Exit 82, Sarah noticed that the fuel gauge was nearly empty, so they would have to find somewhere to refuel soon. They weren't going to find anywhere while they were still on the Interstate, so she pulled off at Exit 82 to try and find somewhere with a fuel pump. The first place she found was what looked like a multi-purpose area which included a fuel pump, so that would probably be the best option; money wasn't going to be an issue in terms of refuelling and their upkeep over the time it would take to prepare to leave the country. Sarah had Chuck go inside, looking for some food so that they wouldn't have to stop too often; she had chosen a car with a large tank and good economy for exactly that reason, as the longer they could go between stops the larger the distance Casey would have to cover in order to find them. As she pulled into the petrol station at the WIlco/Hess Travel Centre, Sarah had a few words of warning for Chuck.

"Okay, you need to go get us some food. I don't want us separated for too long but this is the best option; the quicker we're away from the East Coast the better. If you flash on **anyone**__I want you to press the home button on your iPhone; I programmed it to emit a distress signal to my phone while we were staying in Daytona."

"Wait, wait, wait...I press the home button a ton of times every day. How do you know when it's real distress or not?" asked Chuck, genuinely confused.

"Well, normally you're with me anyway, but I only installed it just after Ellie and Devon left; it hit me that you might be on your own at some point and I'd need a way to know if you were in danger. So far we haven't needed it, but now you're on your own I want you to push it if you flash and get back to the car. The GPS for the car is pre-programmed into the map app, wait for me in the car, and stay there. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am, stay in the car, got it," said Chuck, giving a mock salute.

"Chuck! This is serious! If you see any Fulcrum or NSA agents then they could be following us. So I'll ask again, do you understand?"

"Of course I know this is serious, surely you know by now I joke when I'm freaking out?"

"Yes, but don't worry. There probably won't be any agents around, but if there is, I'll protect you. Remember, if you flash, go to the car and wait until I take care of them."

"Got it, love you."

"I love you too, Chuck. Now go get us some food."

"Anything special?"

"Surprise me."

**--------------**

Chuck entered the shop looking for anything that might keep for a couple of days while they were driving across the country. This meant they were more or less limited to crisps, sweets and soft drinks. Not too healthy, of course, but probably healthier than a two day old sandwich or pasta. They'd probably have to stop at a couple of services to get something a little more substantial, if Sarah was willing to allow them to stop. He couldn't see why not; Casey wasn't likely to have any clue where they were, and even if he guessed they'd be heading back to California, then any tail put on them would certainly be confused by their original direction. His purchases chosen, he sidled up to the counter where a lone employee was looking incredibly bored. It obviously hadn't been a busy day.

"Yes sir, how may I help you?" asked the cashier.

"Err...yeah, Kevin," said Chuck, after getting a look at the cashier's name tag, "hey, why is the manager working on the tills?"

"Busy day, sir," said Kevin, scanning through the various snacks Chuck had selected.

"Doesn't look like it; there couldn't have been more than ten cars in the car park when we arrived."

"That's busy. Plus there was a school trip that came through here," Kevin shuddered as if reliving a traumatic experience, "anyway, is there anything else I can get you?"

"Sure, how about that bottle of vodka right over there," Chuck answered, indicating which one he meant.

"The $8 one?"

"Yeah, that's it. Do you know anywhere I can get a pizza?"

"Not around here. That'll be $23.78 please."

"Probably for the best, we won't be staying for too long anyway," said Chuck, handing him $25, and telling Kevin to keep the change.

"Thank you, sir. Have a nice day," said Kevin as Chuck walked off with the bags of snacks.

Chuck could see Sarah standing by the fuel pumps, looking bored as she filled the tank as much as possible. Despite her obvious boredom, as she leaned on the side of the car, occasionally checking the nozzle of the pump to make sure it was still in place and watching the numbers tick over on the pump readout, there was the ghost of a smile on her face. Chuck couldn't believe even in his wildest dreams that Sarah would be happy about giving up everything she had worked her entire adult life for, but he got his confirmation as Sarah looked down at the ring currently adorning her left hand and a look crossed her face that could only be described as..._contentment_. Chuck could never have dreamed that someone as wonderful as Sarah would be this happy at being with someone like him, but there was all the evidence he needed. The way she seemed to glow and bathe everything around her in a beautiful light. Even the pump seemed shinier somehow. Chuck shook this off as a figment of his imagination and made his way over to his princess. Sarah spotted him and waved as he approached.

"Hi Sarah!" said Chuck, waving back at her, and as they met he greeted her better with a soft kiss, "have I ever told you just how beautiful you are?"

"Yes, but it's always nice to hear from someone you know means it."

"Okay then, bear in mind I failed the poetry section of English at school, and that this is going to sound incredibly corny, but here goes. You are more beautiful to me than anything else in the world. Wait, scratch that, you are my world. Your outer beauty is the only part about you I can even try to put into words, for your inner beauty not even Shakespeare would have been able to describe it, and you make everything else seem beautiful with your radiance."

"Wow...Chuck...that was..." Sarah was left speechless by Chuck's monologue. Of course, she had had men (and some women) tell her how beautiful she was to try and get her into bed, but she had never before heard the conviction that was behind Chuck's voice as he struggled to find the words to describe how he saw her; and then there was that he had told her how beautiful she was on the inside, which nobody, not even her own father, had ever told her. It was surprising, no matter when she thought she had found the limit of how much she could love, Chuck did something which made her fall even more in love with him. She hoped it could never end.

Chuck could see the effect that his words had had on Sarah. In fact, if he hadn't been holding her up Chuck was sure that Sarah's legs wouldn't have held her up on their own. Her eyes seemed so soft compared to their normal wariness, and she stared up at him in wonder. There wasn't anything else he could think of except to stare back at her, their eyes locked as though magnets were attracting them to each other, and their heads slowly, inexorably and completely without control were drawn together, meeting in an explosion of passion. Not even the Apocalypse could have pulled them apart at that point, and neither of them were inclined to manually disengage from one another.

Unfortunately, they had to come up for air eventually, and both felt an instant coldness as their bodies detached, and they set about gathering up the various purchases Chuck had made, which had been scattered around the immediate vicinity of where the car was still being pumped full of petrol. _Good timing_, thought Sarah, as the tank appeared to be more or less full, so she left Chuck to continue gathering the errant goods, and went to pay for the petrol, leaving Chuck with the instruction to press the distress button if he flashed. Chuck struggled to keep his eyes on anything else but her swaying form as she sauntered off, and he was sure that Sarah was doing it on purpose. He would have been more certain had he seen the way Sarah was biting her lip to keep from bursting out laughing.

Sarah returned, and if her credit card had emotions, she was sure it would be crying right about now. The Iraqi oil hadn't helped petrol prices any, and the sheer amount she had just filled up with resulted in a rather high price. Chuck was in the position she had just been in; leaning against the side of the car, looking bored. Sadly, she couldn't afford for another episode like before, and they had to get moving. Casey would be very likely to check the surveillance footage of anywhere that sold petrol, so she wanted to get as far away as possible before their direction was discovered. The upside was that once the NSA found out that they were in South Carolina, most of the resources would be devoted to searching the East Coast and probably further north, instead of searching comprehensively further southwest, which would make getting to their safe house undetected a lot easier.

They got on their way fairly quickly afterwards, and Sarah had indeed decided it was time to head west and make for California. They wouldn't be staying for too long, only long enough to wait for the border guards to relax once more. Their time would be largely spent planning covers and new identities to get them across the border, while also trying to decide where to begin their new life. Sarah wasn't sure if she could give up government work totally, but if they went to an enemy of the U.S. then government work was completely out of the question.

This only really left Europe, and Chuck's efforts to learn a couple of languages were not going well; he had only managed to figure out some of the basic tourist conversations in French and Spanish, and if they were to pass themselves off as natives, it would take much more than that. That only really left a few options, and she wasn't confident about the availability of flights to Australia from Mexico.

Still, they had a few months to iron out the details once they were in the safe house, and it would likely be a fair few days on the road and nights (with mornings) spent in motels before they even got to California, let alone her safe house near the border. All those long miles stretching out before her would have been daunting but for the man sat to the right of her, his hand clasped in hers. Chuck smiled at her and in that moment Sarah knew they would get through their trials and begin a new life somewhere. Somewhere where they weren't in constant danger of being found and killed by both the government and rogue agents.

_Yes, that would be nice_, thought Sarah with a growing smile as she contemplated what lay before her in the following years if they escaped.


	9. Escaping

**A/N: Thanks to Sm93Starbuck aka Coffee for the repeated betas, I wanted to keep the quality of this as high as I could, and so she was very helpful in reading over each section to keep them from dragging on too long. Thanks, Coffee! Please please please please please review. Yeah, anyway, on with the final chapter of Chuck Vs The Captain. For those who have stayed with me for the duration, thanks.**

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"Captain Casey, Major Wyndham, do you mean to tell me that the asset and Walker escaped a_gain_?!" Beckman shouted, barely managing to contain herself from destroying any sense of control she may have had by ranting furiously at the two unfortunate officers.

"Yes ma'am," answered Major Wyndham. "We were attacked by what we believe to be a Fulcrum team as our SWAT force was storming the house to retrieve the asset. We managed to fight off Fulcrum eventually, but only with the aid of the SWAT team. The change in objective, which caused the SWAT team to leave the house, coupled with our distraction at trying to eliminate the Fulcrum agents, gave Walker and the asset a window of opportunity to escape. Which we believe they took."

"Do we have any leads on where they might be?" asked Beckman.

"General," began Casey, "a car was reported stolen just a few minutes after we believe Walker and Bartowski escaped. We tracked this car, a Mercedes, to a rental station, but Walker had ditched it there and rented a car. The shift had changed by the time we got there so the photos we have of them wouldn't have been useful, at least until the employee that served Walker reported back for work. We did the usual searches of the rental company's database for Walker or Bartowski's name, and known aliases, but none came up. They'll probably be using different aliases and heading to another one of Walker's safe houses."

"We'll contact Agent Larkin; he should have knowledge of some of Walker's safe houses, due to their long term partnership," said Beckman.

"That won't be possible ma'am," said Casey sadly, "Larkin was a part of the Fulcrum team that attacked us. He was killed during the fighting."

"Well that's sad news. Larkin was one of our best agents, but he knew the risks when he took on the assignment. Do we have a full casualty report yet, Captain?" asked Beckman.

"Yes ma'am. We have seven dead, including Agent Forrest, and twelve wounded. Two are severe, while the rest are walking wounded. They have all been treated on site or moved to the nearest hospital," answered Casey.

"And the Fulcrum casualties?"

"From what we can tell, it was a thirty man team with two snipers that attacked us. From that, there are eighteen dead, one critical in hospital and ten prisoners. We believe one of the snipers escaped and has gone off the grid, while the other one fell from the roof he was using as a perch and broke his neck on impact."

"So we have effectively neutralised the Fulcrum team threatening the Intersect then?" asked Beckman.

"Yes ma'am, I believe so," answered Major Wyndham.

"Good, now we can focus on finding the asset. If there's nothing else..." began Beckman as she moved to cut the connection.

"Err...ma'am, there is something else," interrupted Casey.

"Go on, Captain," said Beckman.

"Well ma'am...this assignment...it's taken a lot out of me," began Casey, "I don't feel like I can adequately perform field operations anymore."

"So what do you propose we do, Captain. This team will be more effective with you than without you due to your close contact with both targets," reasoned Beckman.

"Ma'am, I don't feel able to work in the field anymore," protested Casey, "the casualties we suffered in Daytona affected me more than they should have. My years in the NSA and in combat have taken their toll. I just can't do it anymore ma'am. I would like to request that I be able to retire from fieldwork."

"After working for this government for so long I think you know we can't just let you retire; you know too much classified intelligence, Captain. You'd be too great a target for our nation's enemies. That would only leave one option, Captain," finished Beckman ominously.

"I'm not suggesting that, ma'am," added Casey.

"Then what are you suggesting? If you retire from fieldwork I doubt that you would work well as an analyst. It doesn't exactly fit your skill set, Captain," asked Beckman.

"I know ma'am, I can't do analysis. What I am suggesting is that I become a part of the training cadre for rookie agents," responded Casey.

"Just what position do you think you are in, _Captain_ Casey, to be suggesting new roles for yourself?" said Beckman, seemingly displeased by the apparent lack of respect in Casey's tone.

_I knew that came out wrong,_ thought Casey.

"You asked what I was suggesting, ma'am. I believe that training rookies would be the best application of my talents."

"You are aware that protocol dictates that any NSA Trainer must hold a rank of Major or higher?" asked Beckman.

_Aww crap, this isn't gonna end well for me then._

"No ma'am, I was not aware of that," said Casey with trepidation.

"Well then, congratulations Major Casey."

"Thank you, ma'am. What happens now?" asked Casey, almost in disbelief at his unexpected promotion.

_Looks like you might survive if I meet you after all, Bartowski._

"You will report to Ft. Meade at 0900 next Monday to begin assessment of your skills for training. As of now, you will be debriefing Major Wyndham and his team on everything you have learnt about the asset and Walker over the time you had been working with them. This team _will_ find the asset; he is too valuable to let him go without a fight," finished Beckman, giving Major Wyndham a stern glare and cutting the connection to Castle.

"So, where would you like to begin, Major?" asked Wyndham.

----------------

After another extremely long drive more or less across the entire country, with another couple of detours heading north to throw off any trails that may have picked them up, but in the end Chuck and Sarah managed to make it to their target location in southern San Diego, about as close to the Mexican border as you can find a house within a decent neighbourhood, which would allow Chuck and Sarah to blend in better.

Of course, Chuck was happy about going back to where he believed Sarah to have grown up; he didn't know about her lifestyle as a child, or that 'Jenny' had only stayed in San Diego for a couple of years at most.

The house was decorated in a far more Spartan fashion than the previous safe house in Daytona. Across one wall of the living room were detailed plans of the nearest border post and information one of Sarah's non-agency contacts had procured on the guards who manned said post.

After the near miss in Florida, Chuck and Sarah had been even more careful to avoid any major population centres, only venturing out when it was necessary to buy more food. It wasn't too important for them to go out anyway; Sarah wanted them to be ready to leave the country as soon as possible, which meant long planning sessions.

In these, Sarah was more or less working on her own, as Chuck was more of a hindrance than a help due to his lack of experience in this less savoury field of espionage.

Sarah had narrowed her options down to two. It was fairly likely that the border guards were going to have been made aware of her and Chuck's appearances, even with a disguise in place. This meant that they could either try and go with disguises anyway, but they would have to find somewhere to get new passports with the updated photos.

Or they could find out the guard shift schedules and bring bribery into play. Either way, it would take time for either option to work; they could hardly just request a passport renewal for someone who technically didn't exist. It would have been easier if they could have set up a past like they did with their first fake identity, but Sarah couldn't use CIA resources anymore, which made things like that far more difficult.

That only really left the bribery option open if they wanted to stay under the radar as much as possible. Sarah had spent weeks sneaking up as close as possible to the border station in order to spot which guards were working when. The schedule didn't seem to have changed over the three weeks she had conducted the recon, but now she had to choose the guard to try and bribe.

A basic psych profile would be easy enough to acquire; the guards at this particular post were all members of the National Guard, so their mandatory psych evaluations would be available to anyone with the right connections. Sarah had a contact within the NSA who had connections within the National Guard base in California, so she anticipated that she could find out which guard was most susceptible to bribery quite easily.

Her contact had come through for her, and sitting in front of Sarah were the profiles of the 8 guards currently on duty at the particular border post that Chuck and Sarah were going to attempt to pass through. She discounted the profiles of four of them, as they appeared to be on the night schedule currently, and they had only switched the two teams from day to night shifts the day before.

Sarah wanted herself and Chuck to be out of the country by the time the shifts had changed again, so that left four profiles sitting in front of her, all of whom would be on duty from 9am till 9pm, in teams of two. One team would be on from 9am-noon, then from 3pm-6pm, while the other would be filling in the intermediate hours.

The four folders were laid out in front of Sarah on the IKEA desk she had set up, one of the few purchases that Chuck and Sarah had made for this new house. She opened the first one and looked at the summary page, which held the relevant information, rather helpfully.

_Name: John Clark_

_Rank: Corporal_

_Age: 34_

_Mother's Communist Affiliations: Rose proves negative_

_Weapons Proficiency: Submachine Gun (High)_

_Pistol (High)_

_Other Comments: Very patriotic, former soldier retired due to psychological issues. No prolonged duties by recommendation of psychiatrist. (Notes by Dr. James May)_

Sarah threw that profile to the side of the desk; ex-soldiers were not going to be easily bribed, so he was out. She opened the next one and saw a picture of a Latino man standing in the usual military pose.

_Name: Domingo Chavez_

_Rank: Sergeant_

_Age: 28_

_Mother's Communist Affiliations: Rose proves slight socialist leanings, no further investigations required._

_Weapons Proficiency: Submachine Guns (High)_

_Other comments: Fluent in Spanish, recommended for border duties. Trained hostage negotiator. Some issues with loyalty, should not be in a position of power. (Notes by Dr. Terence Pratchett)_

Sarah put this profile into a separate pile; Chavez was the other half of the 9am-noon team along with Clark according to the schedule her recon had provided. If she could find vulnerability on the second team it would give them a greater window of opportunity just in case the schedules were switched. The third profile opened up onto another Latino man. _Must make the Mexicans more at ease if they see a 'familiar' face_, thought Sarah.

_Name: Julio 'Oso' Vega_

_Age: 27_

_Mother's Communist Affiliations: Negative_

_Weapons Proficiency: Heavy Weapons (High)_

_Pistols (Medium)_

_Other comments: Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, recommended for border duties. Former LA gang member. No psychological issues discovered as of evaluation dated 15/10/2009. (Notes by Dr. Bill Tawnley)_

Sarah put this profile on the pile with Clark's; if Vega was a former gang member he would naturally be mistrustful of anyone trying to bribe him. He'd probably seen enough police turn a blind eye to shootings in LA's poorest areas to resent bribes and what they represented. No, he was out. That only left one more profile still sitting on the table. Sarah opened it, expecting to see another Latino, but what she saw was a man who looked European, possibly German or Austrian. _Not a surprise_, thought Sarah,_ enough Europeans have immigrated over the years into the U.S. as well as Central Americans._

_Name: Dieter Weber_

_Age: 24_

_Mother's Communist Affiliations: Member of Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland, communist party of the former DDR_

_Weapons Proficiency: Long Distance (Exceptional)_

_Submachine Guns (High)_

_Other comments: Fluent in German, Spanish and French. High long distance proficiency suggests aptitude for special forces operations. Hugely patriotic, likely stems from mother's nationalism in DDR. (Notes by Dr. Thomas Novak)_

No, he was out too. That left only the team containing Clark and Chavez. At least it would be easy to see which one was Chavez, as Clark was a middle-class man from New Hampshire, and Chavez the grandson of a Mexican immigrant who had settled in Sacramento. Sarah began formulating a plan to get across the border with that portion of the reconnaissance complete.

She reckoned that it would be possible for herself and Chuck to pull up to the window that Chavez was occupying, hand over their passports, and if he looked suspicious of them, hand Chavez a 'gift' to divert his attention.

Once Chuck and Sarah were past the border checkpoint they should be more or less clear, so it was imperative that this portion of the plan went perfectly; they couldn't afford for Casey's team to be tipped off before they left, although worse would be if they were detained first.

No, Sarah couldn't think about that at this point; she had to concentrate on getting herself and her beloved across the border and into relative safety, where they could finally get started on a normal life.

_And maybe we could get married..._thought Sarah wistfully.

----------------

Sarah had made the decision for herself and Chuck to attempt a border crossing the next day, so she was spending the night as normally as possible to prepare herself for what could be a difficult next few days. She didn't know if they would be able to secure a light aircraft to take them to Mexico City or if they would have to drive.

Either way, they would have to ditch the car as quickly as possible once across the border; the surveillance cameras would pick up the registration number if Chavez decided to call in the sighting anyway, and even in Mexico they couldn't hope to avoid the government for long.

No, the best hope was to call ahead tonight to a small airfield just inside Mexico that Sarah and her father had once ran for a small while as they waited for the heat from one of Sarah's father's cons to die down. It was probably the longest time 'Jack' had ever spent earning an honest living, but Sarah was hoping that she would still have connections at the airfield.

At least, enough connections to let her take a light aircraft on a trip to Mexico City. It didn't matter what happened after, all Sarah was concerned with was making sure the man who currently had his arms around her was safe and happy, and he wouldn't be safe while still in America, and certainly wouldn't be happy without her.

That much Sarah had learned. Before, she would have been willing to sacrifice herself for Chuck without a moment's hesitation, but when she saw his reaction in the safe house in Daytona when he thought she was going to die, Sarah knew that the death of one of them would mean the death of both of them. They were now a symbiotic organism, no longer two independent beings but each depended on the other for survival.

Sarah had seen the look of despair on Chuck's face, those normally vibrant eyes tinged with sadness as he watched her check over her ammo, and Sarah knew then that there was nothing she wouldn't do to avoid that look occurring again. It had torn at her very soul, to see such a large part of her in so much pain, and it caused her pain too.

She knew then what it was like to be loved above all else, and to love above all else. To find someone whose soul is so in sync with yours that there is an unspoken bond between them, one which when severed would cause both parties to be irreparably damaged. Sarah also knew that Chuck would do anything for her, and she felt so secure in his arms that all of her worries about tomorrow just faded away like the colour in a cheap tie after too many washes.

----------------

Chuck awoke, as he had become accustomed to, with Sarah pushed tightly into him. Normally this evoked a primal reaction with him that was difficult to contain, in fact more condoms had been used in the mornings than during the nights by Chuck's reckoning.

This morning however, he could see the worry etched into Sarah's sleeping face. She had explained her plan to him as they cuddled together the night before, and it didn't take a genius to figure out just how scared Sarah was. Chuck knew she wasn't scared for herself; Sarah had handled worse situations than trying to escape a hostile country inconspicuously.

He hated that he had to consider America as hostile, but considering the fact a large proportion of the NSA budget had been allocated to finding him, hostile was probably the best description. It wasn't safe here for Chuck anymore, and he trusted Sarah to find a place where they could both be safe.

"Chuck...nooo...I can't let them take you!" moaned Sarah in her sleep, thrashing around in Chuck's arms as if she were fighting against an unseen foe.

"Shh, Sarah, I'm here, nobody's trying to take me," whispered Chuck into Sarah's ear as he tried to calm her down.

"NOO! Please! Take me instead!" shouted Sarah, but she was obviously still sleeping.

"Come on, Sarah. I'm not leaving you, I'm never gonna leave you," said Chuck, continuing trying to calm Sarah down, but if anything the nightmare was getting worse, and Sarah was trying to fight Chuck off now, kicking against him as he held her tighter, trying to make her realise just who was holding her.

"Please! Not him! Anyone but him!" begged Sarah, as tears seeped through her closed eyelids, and she continued to pound on Chuck's chest.

"Sarah, please, wake up," said Chuck, gently shaking Sarah from her traumatic nightmare.

Sarah opened her eyes and took in her surroundings. She couldn't see much as her head was buried into Chuck's now torn shirt, but the scent alone was enough to comfort her. She buried her head deeper against him, almost trying to make herself literally a part of him, but try as she might, she couldn't get close enough to the object of her dream.

"I thought I'd lost you," sobbed Sarah into Chuck's chest.

"Hey, hey, I'm not going anywhere without you," said Chuck soothingly, rubbing Sarah's back as her body was racked with sobs once more.

"But it was so real..." began Sarah, but she tailed off and clung even more tightly to Chuck.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Chuck.

"Not yet, just hold me please," asked Sarah, almost turning into a small, vulnerable girl before Chuck's eyes. It was strange, seeing such a normally strong and unbreakable woman so needy and vulnerable, for Chuck, but he was honoured and slightly scared that he could have such an effect on his bride-to-be. Still, he was determined to help her, and if that meant lying there and holding her, one of his favourite things to do anyway, then dammit he was going to do it.

Sarah burrowed once more into his chest and tried to press herself harder against Chuck, closing off all of the space between them, if only to ensure that he was actually there and real, that this wasn't a cruel dream and the nightmare was real instead.

Even if it was only a dream, Sarah had gotten a glimpse of the pain it would cause her to lose Chuck. Ten years, twenty years, fifty years or even a hundred wouldn't be nearly enough time to spend with him, and the pain would be just as bad, probably worse than it was in the dream. Considering she felt like her heart had been ripped out and was following after Chuck as the agents dragged him away, Sarah couldn't imagine what it would be like to endure in real life.

Hopefully it wouldn't become a reality later on today.

----------------

Later on that morning, the moment ad arrived when Chuck and Sarah would attempt to cross the border. Chuck drove up as close as he could without being seen, so Sarah could jump out of the car and use her recon equipment to determine whether Chavez was indeed working as a guard at that point, and if he was, which side of the border post he was on.

Looking through her field binoculars, Sarah could see the two men currently working. One, a tall man, seemed to be Clark, although he currently had his back to Sarah and was in an animated conversation with somebody trying to gain entry. The shorter man on the other side of the post was facing in Sarah's direction, and she could just about make out the nametag upon his breast.

It wasn't clear; the binoculars never were at large distance, but she could see that the name was certainly longer than Vega, so by process of elimination, she could say with confidence that the other man was Chavez. _I love it when a plan comes together_, thought Sarah, before mentally chiding herself for not focusing totally on the mission and getting too overconfident.

Sarah made her way back to the car, and Chuck looked both hopeful and nervous in equal measure. He got out and let Sarah take the driver's seat, as she would likely be more confident at the border and therefore Chavez would have less reason to be suspicious. Chuck had absolute faith in Sarah's ability to pull this off. After all, this was what she had done for a living for around ten years.

The drive along the road heading to the border post was quiet. The tension within the car was thick as both Chuck and Sarah knew that this would probably be the culmination of all of the work they had put in ever since that night in LA when Chuck had walked into his apartment courtyard to see Sarah standing in front of him, tears running down her face.

Chuck shook those thoughts from his head and tried to focus on appearing as calm as possible; nothing would tip Chavez off more than a nervous passenger. There was a small queue leading up to the border post, but according to Sarah this was normal, and she was on the lookout for anything abnormal which may suggest that either the NSA or even Fulcrum had figured out what was going on.

Soon enough, the vehicles ahead of Chuck and Sarah had passed through the border checkpoint, and they were next. Sarah pulled up to the window, a picture of confidence, her sunglasses deflecting the glare from the late morning sun.

"Passports," said Chavez in a monotone, sounding very bored.

Sarah handed over her passport along with Chuck's. They were using the real passports with the aliases of Sarah Carmichael and Charles Burton. Sarah had been forced to weigh the risk of using a known alias with the risk of being caught with a fake passport. In the end, she had decided that the odds of the NSA catching it were very low; there were way too many border crossings to check individually, and the computer systems weren't yet connected totally along this stretch of the border due to the low usage.

Chavez checked over the passports and ran the names through the system to see if they raised any red flags. His eyes widened as he saw the names were known aliases of a rogue agent and an NSA asset. He reached for the phone but was stopped when he saw Sarah take off her sunglasses and he could see the desperation in her eyes.

"Please, we don't want any trouble. We just want to get out of the country and start a life together. Can you understand that?" asked Sarah, trying to get the tears to flow too. No man can say no to a crying woman without a herculean effort.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but I have to report this. You are marked as a dangerous individual. I could get put in prison if I let you go."

"Please, just try to understand where I'm coming from," said Sarah, sliding a huge wad of bills across the counter. Chavez's eyes widened once more as he took in the money sitting just in front of him. He quickly and surreptitiously pocketed the bills and looked back at Sarah.

"Yes ma'am, I see that all seems to check out. Enjoy your trip to Mexico," said Chavez as he pressed a button to lift the barrier and give Chuck and Sarah access across the border.

Sarah let out a breath she didn't realise she'd been holding, and visibly deflated in relief as the barrier rose in front of her. With a thank you to the border guard, she urged the car forwards, not noticing that Chavez made a note of her license plate and picked up the phone.

"Yes, I need to speak to a Major Wyndham, please. Tell him it's about his current assignment. I have a sighting to report."

----------------

"Remind me why we need to get rid of _another _car, would you?" said Chuck sarcastically. He liked this car, and he was pretty sure that they were getting close to being blacklisted by every rental station on the planet.

"Do you really think Chavez wouldn't report seeing us? He'll have pocketed the money and then turned us in anyway. That's how people like that work," answered Sarah. She was all too aware of the fragile loyalty people who accepted bribes had, ever since that time in Russia where she bribed a bodyguard to allow her to assassinate her target, but he turned on her and she barely escaped with her life. Sarah had spent four months in hospital after that disastrous mission, but she had come back stronger and more determined, and she had learned a valuable lesson in trust from that bodyguard.

"So what are we going to do? If they know we're in Mexico then they'll be able to catch us, won't they?" asked Chuck.

"Not if they think we've crossed back over the border," answered Sarah simply.

"And how would we make them think that?" retorted Chuck.

"You'll see," said Sarah mysteriously.

What Sarah had in mind became clear as she pulled into a small town around ten miles inside the border. She saw a young couple walking side by side along the street, and they looked like they might be decent decoys to throw the NSA off the scent.

"_¡hola!" _began Sarah in Spanish, attracting the attention of the couple as they passed the car, "would you be able to help us?"

"_Si_, what is it?" asked the man.

"Would you like to be able to get into America?" asked Sarah.

"Of course!" answered the man, "My fiancée and I moved to this town so we could get the necessary equipment to cross into America. Can you help?"

"Yes," began Sarah, "I can have two authentic American passports for you, and you can take our car. We won't need it anymore."

"But why? How did you get these passports?" asked the woman.

"That is not important, but my fiancée and I needed to leave the U.S. quickly and secretly, so we had multiple passports made. How is your English?" asked Sarah, switching to English for the last sentence.

"I was an English teacher in Durango," answered the man, "but my fiancée's English is not so good."

"Well, you will have to do the talking then. From the schedule's I have learned, there should be a different guard on duty from when we crossed, so they shouldn't be suspicious. Do you have any passport photos on you?"

"_Si_," answered the man once more, withdrawing two photos from his wallet and handing them to Sarah.

"_Gracias," _answered Sarah, as she pulled a scalpel from her bag and got to work transplanting the photographs of the Mexican couple to the passports she and Chuck had used around twenty minutes before. Soon it was done, and two believable passports with the photos of the couple standing before Sarah were complete. She handed them to the couple, and gave them the keys to the car, telling Chuck to remove their bags from the boot.

"Good luck," said Sarah to the couple as they got into the car and drove back the way Sarah and Chuck had come from. She knew that she had just condemned the couple to arrest and deportation, but Sarah couldn't focus on that. All she knew was important was that she had just bought herself and Chuck a lot more time to escape. Next up, they would have to hitchhike to the small airfield, which was around fifteen miles away.

_That shouldn't be too difficult,_ thought Sarah as she changed into a much tighter set of clothes.

----------------

Unsurprisingly, Sarah managed to get a truck driver to stop fairly quickly. In fact, she nearly ended up causing a large crash when she appeared at the side of the road and held her thumb out as nearly every driver within sight slammed on their brakes and offered a lift, their eyes not heading much further up than her chest, due to the very tight shirt she had somehow found in her bag for just such an eventuality.

Sarah rolled her eyes mentally, and sighed as she saw the reactions she was getting. _Men_, she thought, _why are they always so immature?_

Those looks turned into disappointment as they saw the ring on Sarah's finger, and then even more disappointment as Chuck appeared at the side of the road alongside Sarah. She had to fight to keep a straight face at the looks now directed at Chuck, a strange mix of jealously and admiration, while Chuck just stood there, oblivious.

"Where are you going, _Señorita_?" asked the truck driver.

"We're heading for Cacahuate Airfield. Do you know where that is?" responded Sarah in Spanish.

"_Si, Si_. It's in the direction I'm going anyway. I'll take you there."

"_Gracias,__ Señor," _said Sarah, motioning for Chuck to climb into the cab of the truck first; she didn't want to sit next to the driver if she could help it. Chuck smiled at this; he knew why she didn't want to go in first, but he couldn't blame her. He wasn't looking forward to sitting next to the driver too much either.

The drive to the airfield passed without much incident. Sarah was deep in thought, staring out of the window at the Mexican landscape, trying to figure out what came next. She knew that they would have to get to Mexico City eventually to catch a flight to Europe, but she couldn't decide whether to fly all the way or to land somewhere near Guadalajara and drive the rest of the way. At least they were out of the main danger now, which relaxed Sarah somewhat.

Chuck, on the other hand, was very uncomfortable. He couldn't speak word _uno_ of Spanish, so any attempts by the driver to initiate conversation were met with a bemused look. The driver soon gave up that line of attack, and Chuck was left sitting in the middle of the truck cab, staring out at the road stretching before them and hoping that it would be a fairly short trip. He was glad when he saw the sign for the airfield, and had to restrain himself from trampling Sarah in his haste to get out of the truck once they arrived.

They walked the remaining hundred or so yards to the gate, and were met by an aging man, balding, with whatever hair left a shade of grey. He looked up immediately when he heard the crunch of their footsteps on the gravel, and a smile crossed his face as he took a moment to study Sarah, a look of recognition crossing his face after a short amount of time.

"Emily! Emily Mapp! I haven't seen you for years, little one!"

"Not so little now, Miguel. How is Francesca?"

"She's at home with the grandchildren. Me and Paulo run the airfield now. You remember Paulo?"

"Of course I do, Miguel. How could I forget him? He spent months making fun of me when Dad and I ran the airfield."

"I bet he regrets that now, you've grown into quite the beautiful woman," said Miguel, and Sarah blushed madly at the old man's comments.

"Who's the _buqui_?" continued Miguel.

"This is Chuck, he's my fiancé, so be nice, Miguel," said Sarah as she laughed.

"You are a very lucky man, my son," said Miguel, shaking Chuck's hand.

"Don't I know it," said Chuck.

"What is it you need, Emily? This isn't just a social call, is it?" asked Miguel.

"No, I'm sorry for not visiting earlier. We need a plane that can get us to Mexico City, or at least to Guadalajara."

"Why? You're not in trouble are you, little one? You know what; you don't need to tell me. Miguel will help you anyway. I don't forget the service your father gave this airfield."

"Thank you, Miguel. Is there a plane ready? I really don't want to impose on you for too long."

"Yes, child. We always have one waiting. You'd be surprised at the amount of American criminals we get coming through here looking for a ride. We always take them for whatever we can!" said Miguel, laughing. He opened up the gates to let Chuck and Sarah in, and followed just after them.

"Just who is that?" asked Chuck.

"I'll explain later," hissed Sarah, as they followed Miguel to the small Cesena aircraft that was waiting on the runway.

"Here you go, little one. She'll get you to the big city, no problem. Fully fuelled and ready to go. Just don't go so long between visits, you hear?"

"Of course, Miguel. We'll send you invitations to the wedding," said Sarah as she offered her cheek for Miguel to kiss, while Chuck loaded up the plane.

"Okay, shall we go then?" said Chuck.

"Sure," said Sarah happily, draping her arms around Chuck and giving him a passionate kiss before climbing into the pilot's seat and Chuck slid in beside her, smiling at how close they were to being free of the constraints of government work. Sarah pushed the throttle forwards and the small aircraft leapt forwards, taking off and heading towards Mexico City at about as high a speed as could be expected in the circumstances.

Chuck settled in for a long flight, and dreamed of what life might be like once they had truly escaped.

----------------

The plane landed in one of Mexico City's smaller airports, which meant a taxi ride to the international airport across the city. Sarah somehow managed to get them a discount (Chuck _really_ didn't want to know) and they were trying to find a suitable flight to get on.

Chuck was currently sitting in an internet cafe a couple of minute's walk from the airport terminal, browsing the various websites to find a flight leaving as soon as possible.

"Sarah! British Airways flight to London Heathrow leaving in half an hour!" called Chuck to Sarah, who was currently trying to get a cup of coffee.

"That'll do, Chuck. Can you print the tickets here?"

"Err, yeah, I think so. Yeah! I'm doing it now, you pick them up while I sort out our stuff."

"Got them, Chuck. Let's get going; it's going to be pretty tight as it is, even with no queues."

"Sure, do you want me to carry your bags for you?"

"You don't have to be such a gentleman all the time, Chuck. I'll be fine."

"Fine, fine. Shall we go then?" said Chuck, exiting the internet cafe and beginning the walk across the huge car park of the airport, making his way towards the departures terminal. Sarah was just behind him, her bags on an airport trolley.

They entered the terminal and immediately began scanning for the British Airways desk. Sarah found it first, and motioned for Chuck to follow her. They were lucky in that there wasn't a large queue; only one family was waiting in line in front of the desk. Sarah handed Chuck his real passport, trusting to the fact that the NSA probably wouldn't be looking for their real names on any airport register. Chuck looked shocked for a moment, but it was a testament to his trust for Sarah that he accepted the passport with no questions, and waited for the family in front of him to complete their check-in.

The luggage check-in was no trouble at all; no red flags were raised due to the fact that the NSA obviously believed their net had been closed around the U.S. so they had neglected to alert neighbouring countries about the two fugitives. They made their way to the metal detectors, and Chuck had a brief moment of panic when he remembered the knives that Sarah always seemed to have stowed somewhere on her person.

He looked back at her, the question evident in his eyes as they flickered down to her ankle, leaving no doubt. She simply smiled back and mouthed "ceramic" as an answer. Chuck knew Sarah could deal with not having any weapons on her at all; her agent's training was too ingrained in her to allow Sarah to be completely unarmed by choice.

Again, there were no issues with this section of the check-in, and Chuck and Sarah were through just in time to be able to head straight to the gate and board the plane. Chuck could finally relax totally for the first time in months as the plane took off, and Sarah simply exuded serenity as she leant her head on his shoulder. They were finally free to start their new life, and Chuck didn't even have to try and learn a new language. It really was the best they could hope for in the circumstances. Chuck began playing over what he hoped would be their wedding in his head, but Sarah seemed to have something on her mind that she needed to share.

"Chuck..."she murmured, "I have something to tell you..."

----------------

**The End**

_**I know, that was an evil ending, but at least there will be a sequel. It has a working title of Chuck Vs The Security Service, but that is subject to change. Look for a Casey based one shot in this AU at some point in the near future. Thanks for reading, and please review this final chapter. Even if you have nothing to say, just putting "good job" or something similar, just to tell me you're reading will be enough.**_

_**Thanks for the support,**_

_**Kroblues.**_


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